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AN  AMERICAN  LABOR  POLICY 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

H*W  YORK  •   BOSTON  •  CHICAGO  •  DALLAS 
ATLANTA  •   SAN  FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •   BOMBAY  •   CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  CO.  OF  CANADA,  Ltd. 
mono 


AN  AMERICAN  LABOR 
POLICY 


BY 

JULIUS  HENRY  COHEN 

Author  of  "Law  and  Order  in  Industry,"  "The  Law: 

Business  or  Profession?"  "Commercial 

Arbitration  and  the  Law" 


jf3eto  gorb 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

1919 

AU  right*  reserwd 


C0PTBI6HT,  1919 
By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.     Published,  Umj,  1919 


Co 
MY  MOTHER 
AND  FATHER 


INTRODUCTION 

It  seems  to  me  that  what  is  needed  at  the 
present  time  for  the  stabilizing  of  our  indus- 
trial situation  is  not  a  British  Plan,  or  a  French 
Plan,  or  a  Russian  Plan,  but  an  American  Plan, 
in  harmony  with  our  institutions,  our  laws,  our 
customs  and  our  outlook  generally.  I  am  not 
a  Socialist.  I  am  not  a  Syndicalist.  On  the 
other  hand,  I  am  convinced  that  the  present 
state  of  industrial  organization  cannot  last, 
that  it  ought  not  to  last;  moreover,  that  it  will 
not  be  permitted  to  last.  Some  change  must 
come  about.  How  shall  it  come  about? 
What  is  the  next  step?  How  extensive  is  the 
change  to  be  ? 

I  cannot  escape  the  leanings  of  my  training 
as  a  lawyer.  I  believe  with  Signor  Orlando, 
the  Italian  Premier,  in  what  he  said  in  sup- 
porting the  resolution  for  a  League  of  Nations 
at  the  Quai  d'Orsay  on  January  25th,  1919:  1 

1  See  New  York  World,  February  2,  1919.    Editorial  Sec- 
tion, p.  3. 


Introduction 

"The  principle  of  law  is  not  only  the  principle  of 
protection  and  of  justice  against  violence — it  is  the 
form  guaranteed  by  the  state  of  what  is  a  vital  prin- 
ciple to  humanity — social  cooperation  and  solidarity 
among  men." 

If  this  "principle  of  social  cooperation"  is  to 
be  put  into  a  League  of  Nations  in  order  to 
insure  "solidarity  among  men,"  as  well  as 
"protection  and  of  justice  against  violence," 
the  same  principle  must  be  put  into  industry. 
Employers  and  workers  alike  must  come  to  it. 
Shall  they  come  to  it  by  a  process  as  expen- 
sive as  it  cost  the  world  to  arrive  at  a  state  of 
international  reason  and  law,  or  shall  they 
profit  by  experience  ? 

It  is  my  earnest  hope  that  the  analogies  and 
the  definite  experiences  herein  put  forth  will 
help  to  save  our  country  from  a  crisis  which  I 
believe  to  be  as  imminent  as  was  the  European 
War  five  years  ago,  and  that  the  enlightened 
leaders  of  labor  and  of  management,  as  well 
as  capital,  will  find  therein  some  suggestion  for 
a  basis  of  cooperation. 

February  I,  1919. 


AN 
AMERICAN  LABOR  POLICY 

The  radical  does  not  like  the  words  "law  and 
order."  It  is  too  suggestive  of  the  police  or 
the  military  in  a  time  of  strike  or  revolution. 
The  Syndicalist  of  the  Sorel  type  regards  it  as 
the  final  word  in  the  scheme  of  the  capitalist 
class  to  enslave  the  proletariat.  On  the  other 
hand,  it  has  been  only  too  frequently  used  by 
reactionary  employers  to  couch  in  respectable 
language  that  "quick  kind  of  justice"  which 
applies  lynch  law  to  "unwelcome  foreigners." 
Of  course,  in  its  right  sense  the  term  covers 
something  of  the  very  essence  of  democracy. 
"What  we  seek,"  said  President  Wilson  in  his 
Mount  Vernon  address,  "is  the  reign  of  law} 
based  upon  the  consent  of  the  governed  and 
sustained  by  the  organized  opinion  of  man- 

1  Italics  ours. 

I 


2  American  Labor  Policy 

kind."  It  is  the  antithesis  of  anarchy.  With- 
out it  no  democracy  can  exist,  national  or  in- 
ternational. "If  there  was  ever  a  time," 
writes  Margaret  Sherwood,1  when  the  world 
had  need  of  a  realization  that  government 
rests  upon  enduring  allegiance  to  law,  that 
a  lasting  faith  should  guide  conduct  from 
day  to  day,  from  year  to  year,  that  deci- 
sions of  right  and  wrong  should  cover  more 
than  the  single  instance,  it  is  now,  in  face 
of  the  unthinking  opportunism  that  has  gov- 
erned American  life  in  recent  years."  The 
past  four  years  have  been  devoted  to  produc- 
ing international  order,  to  converting  interna- 
tional anarchy  into  international  law,  to  making 
international  law  a  matter  not  of  mere  aca- 
demic theory  but  of  world  practice.  In  No- 
vember of  1916  the  writer  indulged  himself 
to  the  extent  of  intimating  that  it  would  seem 
like  "no  vain  prophecy  to  forecast  that  if  the 
sentiment  now  behind  the  League  to  Enforce 

1"For   Democracy,"  the  Atlantic  Monthly,   October,   1918, 
P-  517- 


Industrial  Law  3 

Peace  should  prevail  and  the  outcome  of  the 
great  international  war  should  be  the  inven- 
tion of  new  mechanism  for  making  reason  tri- 
umphant in  international  relations,  we  shall 
witness  a  rapid  creation  of  institutions  for 
subordinating  industrial  conflict  to  a  reign  of 
law."  1  This  was  said  upon  the  basis  of  some 
ten  years'  contact  with  the  industrial  problem. 
It  is  perhaps  not  too  hopeful  now  to  say  that  by 
the  time  this  present  material  will  appear  in 
print,  some  new  mechanism  for  making  rea- 
son triumphant  in  international  relations  will 
be  in  operation.  Already  the  signs  of  the 
times  indicate  that,  in  the  determination  and 
fixing  of  industrial  relations,  the  sound  com- 
mon sense  of  the  American  people  is  set- 
ting its  face  like  flint  against  every  effort 
to  substitute  violence  for  reason.  To  convert 
industrial  anarchy  into  industrial  law  is  the 
next  great  task  of  civilization.     And  to  the 

1  Address  before  the  Academy  of  Political  Science  in  the 
city  of  New  York.  Proceedings  of  the  Academy  of  Political 
Science  in  the  city  of  New  York  for  January,  1917,  Vol.  VII, 
No.  1. 


4  American  Labor  Policy 

extent  only  that  lawyers  understand  the  prob- 
lem, take  account  of  all  the  factors  involved, 
and  present  a  real  and  constructive  program 
will  their  profession  be  permitted  to  share  in 
the  task.  Very  little  has  been  done  by  our 
profession  in  this  field.  "Most  of  the  common 
law"  in  this  field,  writes  Freund,1  "has  devel- 
oped in  that  atmosphere  of  indifferent  neutral- 
ity which  has  enabled  courts  to  be  impartial 
but  also  keeps  them  out  of  touch  with  vital 
needs."  The  problem  has  been  too  often  con- 
sidered "as  if  it  concerned  abstract  relations 
between  convertible  human  personalities,  while 
it  was  a  problem  concerning  industry  and  a 
class."  The  time  has  come  for  our  profession 
to  awaken  from  its  slumbers. 


THE   PHILOSOPHY   OF   VIOLENCE 

"If  a  Democracy,"  says  Maine,  "were  to  al- 
low a  portion  of  the  multitude  of  which  it  con- 

1  Ernst  Freund:    "Standards  of  American  Legislation,"  p. 
48. 


Philosophy  of  Violence  5 

sists  to  set  some  law  at  defiance  which  it  hap- 
pens to  dislike — it  would  be  guilty  of  a  crime 
which  hardly  any  other  virtue  could  redeem, 
and  which  century  upon  century  might  fail  to 
repair."  *  Graham  Wallas,  in  "The  Great  So- 
ciety," calls  this  the  philosophy  of  the  "habit 
philosophers,"  and  regards  it  as  unsafe  for  us 
"to  treat  Habit  as  second  nature  or  as  a  self- 
sufficient  basis  for  social  life."  2  Accordingly, 
the  enlargement  of  scale  "which  makes  Habit 
increasingly  necessary  in  the  Great  Society, 
increases  also  the  necessity  of  criticising  and, 
from  time  to  time,  abandoning  existing 
habits."  3  And  Wallas  uses  as  an  illustration 
the  practice  of  modern  horticulturists,  "who 
propagate  millions  of  fruit  trees  or  potatoes 
from  cuttings,  require  the  periodical  produc- 
tion of  new  varieties  from  actual  seeding"  so 
that  "in  the  modern  world  of  habit  and  repeti- 
tion we  have  learnt  to  attach  a  new  value  to  the 
man   who   goes   back   to   his   first-hand   im- 

1  Sir  Henry  Maine :     "Popular  Government,"  p.  64. 

2  P.  78. 

*  P.  81.    Italics  ours. 


6  American  Labor  Policy 

pulses."  *  With  this  necessity  for  preventing 
our  becoming  the  slaves  of  our  habits  and  for 
an  enlarged  freedom  to  change  them,  is  Society 
to  adopt  the  method  of  nervous  shock  or  culti- 
vation of  new  habits  by  gradual  change  ?  The 
advocates  of  violence  take  one  ground ;  we  take 
another.  Like  good  lawyers,  let  us  consider 
the  strength  of  our  antagonist's  argument,  in 
order  that  we  may  the  better  present  our  own. 
Sorel  says :  "We  cannot  censure  too  severely 
those  who  teach  the  people  that  they  ought  to 
carry  out  the  highly  idealistic  decrees  of  a 
progressive  justice."2  Again:  "Workmen 
quickly  perceive  that  the  labour  of  conciliation 
or  of  arbitration  rests  on  no  economico-judicial 
basis,  and  their  tactics  have  been  conducted — 
instinctively  perhaps — in  accordance  with  this 
datum."3  Again:  "If  revolutionary  syndi- 
calism triumphs,  there  will  be  no  more  brilliant 
speeches  on  immanent  Justice,  and  the  parlia- 
mentary regime,  so  dear  to  the  intellectuals, 

1  Pp.  8r,  82. 

2  Georges  Sorel :     "Reflections  on  Violence,"  p.  122. 

3  Idem.,  p.  64. 


Philosophy  of  Violence  7 

will  be  finished  with — it  is  the  abomination  of 
desolation !  We  must  not  be  astonished,  then, 
that  they  speak  about  violence  with  so  much 
anger."  1  Sorel  is  to  the  philosophy  of  indus- 
trial violence  what  Treitschke  and  Bernhardi 
were  to  the  philosophy  of  international  vio- 
lence. There  is  but  one  justice,  and  that  is  the 
justice  of  power.  Accordingly,  the  working- 
men  should  seek  to  gain  power  in  order  that 
they  may  be  the  sole  administrators  of  justice. 
These  views  have  recently  been  expressed  by 
Lenine  in  his  revolutionary  program  for  Swit- 
zerland.2 Lenine's  instructions  to  his  follow- 
ers in  conducting  a  strike  movement  contain 
this:  "The  best  means  of  dragging  conces- 
sions from  the  bourgeoisie  is  not  that  of  trans- 
actions or  arrangements  touching  their  inter- 
ests or  their  prejudices,  but  the  organisation 
and  the  preparation  of  the  revolutionary  strug- 
gle of  the  masses  against  the  bourgeoisie. 
Thus  we  may  be  certain  that  the  more  wide- 

1  Idem.,  p.  19. 

2  See  the  New  Europe,  24  October,  1918,  Vol.  IX,  No.  106, 
p.  42. 


8  American  Labor  Policy 

spread  our  propaganda  the  wider  will  be  the  ex- 
tent of  the  public,  which  we  may  be  able  to 
persuade  of  the  necessity  for  this  progressive 
tax,  and  the  greater  will  be  the  anxiety  of  the 
bourgeoisie  to  make  concessions,  and  we  shall 
profit  by  each  one  of  these  concessions,  be  it 
never  so  small,  to  extend  and  strengthen  our 
struggle  for  the  integral  expropriation  of  the 
bourgeoisie." l  The  infamies  to  which  this 
philosophy  has  gone  are  described  in  an  article 
entitled  "The  Russian  Terror,"  published  in 
the  Frankfurter  Zeitung  of  September  27th, 
and  dispatched  from  Moscow  September  10th 
by  its  correspondent,  Herr  Alfons  Paquet.2 
The  French  Revolution  in  the  worst  days  of  its 
reign  of  terror  was  a  mild  family  quarrel  com- 
pared with  the  infamies  to  which  Lenine,  Trot- 
zky  and  their  confederates  have  lowered  them- 
selves in  the  conduct  of  their  depredations. 
Neither  the  small  families  living  in  lodgings 
nor  the  rich  in  the  great  boulevards  are  spared. 

1  See  the  New  Europe,  24  October,  1918,  Vol.  IX,  No.  106, 

P-  43- 

2  Idem.,  p.  44. 


Philosophy  of  Violence  9 

Families  with  small  children  have  to  pass  the 
night  in  the  street.  In  certain  houses  only  pi- 
anos, pictures  and  clocks  are  requisitioned  by 
the  Evacuation  Committees  for  their  clubs. 
Says  one  of  the  leaders:  "We  must  get  into 
our  hands  not  only  all  means  of  production,  but 
also  all  the  personal  property  of  the  bourgeoisie 
— for  all  this  only  serves  as  a  weapon  against 
the  Proletariat."  And  Moscow  has  been  made 
well  aware  that  the  words  are  not  mere  threats. 
The  chief  office  of  the  Special  Commission  is 
installed  in  a  house  belonging  to  the  "Russian 
Insurance  Company"  in  the  Lubianka,  and 
passes  sentences  of  life  and  death  on  those  who 
are  arrested.  Factory  managers,  house  own- 
ers, business  men,  many  of  them  over  seventy, 
are  arrested  and  held  as  hostages  to  be  shot 
immediately  should  any  further  attempts  be 
made  on  the  lives  of  members  of  the  Soviet 
Government.  There  is  scarcely  a  family  left 
in  the  whole  of  Moscow  which  has  not  suf- 
fered from  this  terrible  Red  Terror.  In  broad 
daylight  money  and  goods  are  stolen  in  the 


io  American  Labor  Policy 

open  streets  by  armed  hordes.  One  section 
of  a  decree  of  the  Moscow  Soviet  contains  the 
following:  "Until  the  instruction  as  to  the 
confiscation  of  household  furniture,  with  a 
view  to  its  proper  division  among  the  work- 
men, is  confirmed,  the  furniture  of  requisi- 
tioned houses  is  merely  subject  to  inventory 
and  registration."  l  Like  the  French  Revolu- 
tion, the  Russian  Revolution  was  a  just  and 
holy  revolt  of  the  people  against  the  monarchy 
and  the  autocracy.  In  its  beginning  it  was  a 
moral  reaction  against  wrong.  All  over  Eu- 
rope the  French  Revolution  was  hailed  as  the 
dawn  of  a  new  era  of  righteousness,  but  when 
the  subterranean  forces,  the  elementary  pas- 
sions of  men,  were  let  loose,  there  followed 
the  terrible  carnival  of  blood  of  the  Reign  of 
Terror.  Similarly,  at  the  time  of  the  peasant 
uprising  in  the  sixteenth  century,  the  original 
demands  of  the  people  were  couched  in  im- 
pressive, simple  and  modest  terms,  and  yet 
there  never  was  "a  more  shocking  travesty  of 

1  The  New  Europe,  24  October,  1918,  p.  47. 


Philosophy  of  Violence  II 

humanity  than  the  scenes  enacted  after  the 
Peasant  Revolution  had  started."  * 

However  just  the  cause,  however  righteous 
the  indignation,  it  is  the  lesson  of  all  history 
that  possession  of  unrestrained  power  leads 
ultimately  to  the  destruction  of  personal  liberty 
and  the  defeat  of  the  very  cause  which  altru- 
istic agencies  of  power  sought  to  promote. 

The  philosophy  of  imperialism  which  led  to 
Germany's  downfall  is  for  the  time  being  trans- 
ferred to  the  Sorels,  the  Lenines  and  the 
Trotzkys.  Trotzky  ("The  Bolsheviki  and 
World  Peace")  condemns  the  bourgeois  spirit 
of  "law  and  order"  as  reactionary.  "If  the 
Social  Democracy  sets  national  duties  above 
its  class  duties/'  says  he,  "it  commits  the  great- 
est crime  not  only  against  Socialism,  but  also 
against  the  interest  of  the  nation  as  rightly  and 
broadly  understood."  2  This  philosophy,  then, 
represents  not  the  earnest  effort  of  men  to  se- 
cure a  broader  freedom  for  all  the  people,  but  a 

1  Felix  Adler :     "The  Punishment  of  Individuals  and  of  Peo- 
ples," the  Standard,  December,  1918,  p.  80. 

2  P.   171.    Italics  ours. 


12  American  Labor  Policy 

sheer  attempt  to  gather  power  in  their  hands 
to  be  used  without  restraint.  It  is  the  antith- 
esis of  stable  organization  and  of  all  law, 
democratic  or  otherwise. 

The  red  flag  of  the  Russian  Bolshevik  and 
of  the  French  Syndicalist,  therefore,  means 
something  more  than  the  destruction  of  capital 
or  the  transference  of  property  from  one  group 
of  society  to  another.  It  means  destruction 
of  law  and  the  autocratic  wielding  of  power 
by  mob  leaders.  There  is  little  danger  that 
this  philosophy  will  go  far  in  our  own  country. 
Some  of  the  boys  in  uniform  have  already  in- 
dicated how  they  will  react  to  it.  But  should 
the  disease  germ  spread,  like  the  influenza  the 
ravages  of  the  epidemic  will  be  terrible  before 
it  is  checked.  It  is  a  sensible  warning  which 
John  D.  Rockefeller,  Jr.,  sounded  at  Atlantic 
City,  that  upon  the  heads  of  those  leaders 
"who  refuse  to  reorganize  their  industrial 
households  in  the  light  of  the  modern  spirit, 
will  rest  the  responsibility  for  such  radical  and 
drastic  measures  as  may  later  be  forced  upon 


The  Modern  Spirit  13 

industry  if  the  highest  interests  of  all  are  not 
shortly  considered  and  dealt  with  in  a  spirit 
of  fairness." 


THE   MODERN   SPIRIT 

What  is  this  modern  spirit  to  which  Mr. 
Rockefeller  refers?  In  the  great  Mogul 
Steamship  Case,  Lord  Chief  Justice  Coleridge 
permitted  himself  to  say:  "It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  all  trade  is  and  must  be  in  a  sense 
selfish;  trade  not  being  infinite,  nay,  the  trade 
of  a  particular  place  or  district  being  possibly 
very  limited,  what  one  man  gains  another  loses. 
In  the  hand  to  hand  war  of  commerce  .  .  . 
men  fight  on  without  much  thought  of  others, 
except  a  desire  to  excel  or  to  defeat  them. 
Very  lofty  minds,  like  Sir  Philip  Sidney  with 
his  cup  of  water,  will  not  stoop  to  take  an 
advantage,  if  they  think  another  wants  it  more. 
Our  age,  in  spite  of  high  authority  to  the  con- 
trary, is  not  without  its  Sir  Philip  Sidneys ;  but 
these  are  counsels  of  perfection  which  it  would 


14  American  Labor  Policy 

be  silly  indeed  to  make  the  measure  of  the 
rough  business  of  the  world  as  pursued  by 
ordinary  men  of  business."  1  In  the  same  case 
Lord  Justice  Fry  said:  "I  know  no  limits 
to  the  right  of  competition  in  the  defendants 
— I  mean,  no  limits  in  law.  I  am  not  speak- 
ing of  morals  or  good  manners.  To  draw  a 
line  between  fair  and  unfair  competition,  be- 
tween what  is  reasonable  and  unreasonable, 
passes  the  power  of  the  Courts.  Competition 
exists  when  two  or  more  persons  seek  to 
possess  or  enjoy  the  same  thing:  it  follows 
that  the  success  of  one  must  be  the  failure  of 
another — and  no  principle  of  law  enables  us  to 
interfere  with  or  to  moderate  that  success  or 
that  failure  so  long  as  it  is  due  to  mere  com- 
petition." 2  And  Lord  Justice  Bowen  said: 
"To  say  that  a  man  is  to  trade  freely,  but  that 
he  is  to  stop  short  at  any  act  which  is  cal- 
culated to  harm  other  tradesmen,  and  which  is 
designed  to  attract  business  to  his  own  shop, 

i  21  L.  R.  Q.  B.  D.  544,  at  553-4- 

223  L-  R-  Q-  B.  D.  598,  at  625-6  (1889). 


The  Modern  Spirit  15 

would  be  a  strange  and  impossible  counsel  of 
perfection"  and  that  "To  attempt  to  limit  Eng- 
lish competition  in  this  way  would  probably 
be  as  hopeless  an  endeavour  as  the  experiment 
of  King  Canute."  x  This  may  be  fairly  de- 
scribed in  the  language  of  The  Journal  of 
Commerce  of  New  York  as  "the  old  standards 
of  the  industrial  Bourbons  of  past  years" 
which  are  "out  of  date  and  cannot  be  again 
maintained  or  enforced."  2  We  lawyers  have 
been  very  fond  of  saying  that  ours  is  a  pro- 
fession, not  a  business ;  that  our  vocation  is  not 
to  make  money,  but  to  serve,  our  reward 
remaining  secondary  always  to  the  perform- 
ance of  the  social  service  to  which  we  are 
dedicated.  Mr.  Rockefeller  is  almost  pro- 
fessionalizing industry  when  he  says :  "... 
shall  we  adopt  the  modern  viewpoint,  which 
regards  industry  as  in  the  nature  of  social 
service,  as  well  as  a  revenue-producing  proc- 
ess for  capital  and  labor?"     And  we  must 

*23  L.  R.  Q.  B.  D.  598,  at  615-16  (1889). 
2  December  10,  1918. 


1 6  American  Labor  Policy 

agree  that  he  is  thoroughly  sound  when  he  says 
that  "the  day  has  passed  when  the  conception 
of  industry  as  primarily  a  matter  of  private 
interest  can  be  maintained.  To  cling  to  it  is 
only  to  lay  up  trouble  for  the  future  and  to 
arouse  antagonism.  In  the  light  of  the  pres- 
ent, every  thinking  man  must  adopt  the  view 
that  the  purpose  of  industry  is  to  advance  so- 
cial well-being  rather  than  primarily  to  afford 
a  means  for  the  accumulation  of  individual 
wealth."  It  is  significant  that  on  the  very  day 
that  Mr.  Rockefeller's  address  was  delivered 
at  Atlantic  City,  the  Committee  on  Industrial 
Problems  and  Relations  of  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce  in  New  York  struck  almost  iden- 
tically the  same  note  as  did  Mr.  Rockefeller, 
urging  that  "wage-earners  as  a  class  must  be 
given  an  opportunity  to  count  as  men  and 
women  in  the  vital  management  of  their  in- 
dustries in  whatever  position  they  may  be 
qualified  to  count,"  and  the  men  who  are  re- 
turning from  active  campaigns  against  the 
enemy  "will  not  be  content  to  relapse  to  a  posi- 


The  Modern  Spirit  17 

tion  where  they  are  only  a  number  on  a  time 
sheet  or  a  pay-roll.  Nor  is  it  right  or  just  that 
they  should  be  asked  to  do  so."  When  the 
War  Emergency  and  Reconstruction  Confer- 
ence at  Atlantic  City  rose  to  its  feet  and  unani- 
mously adopted  (substantially)  the  ten  articles 
of  Mr.  Rockefeller's  creed,1  the  chairman  of 

1 1.  I  believe  that  labor  and  capital  are  partners,  not  ene- 
mies; that  their  interests  are  common  interests,  not  opposed, 
and  that  neither  can  attain  the  fullest  measure  of  prosperity 
at  the  expense  of  the  other,  but  only  in  association  with  the 
other. 

2.  I  believe  that  the  community  is  an  essential  party  to  in- 
dustry, and  that  it  should  have  adequate  representation  with 
the  other  parties. 

3.  I  believe  that  the  purpose  of  industry  is  quite  as  much  to 
advance  social  well-being  as  material  well-being  and  that  in  the 
pursuit  of  that  purpose  the  interests  of  the  community  should 
be  carefully  considered,  the  well-being  of  the  employes  as 
respects  living  and  working  conditions  should  be  fully  guarded, 
management  should  be  adequately  recognized  and  capital 
should  be  justly  compensated,  and  that  failure  in  any  of  these 
particulars  means  loss  to  all  four. 

4.  I  believe  that  every  man  is  entitled  to  an  opportunity  to 
earn  a  living,  to  fair  wages,  to  reasonable  hours  of  work  and 
proper  working  conditions,  to  a  decent  home,  to  the  oppor- 
tunity to  play,  to  learn,  to  worship  and  to  love,  as  well  as  to 
toil,  and  that  the  responsibility  rests  as  heavily  upon  industry 
as  upon  government  or  society,  to  see  that  these  conditions 
and  opportunities  prevail. 

5.  I  believe  that  industry,  efficiency  and  initiative,  wherever 
found,   should  be  encouraged  and   adequately  rewarded  and 


1 8  American  Labor  Policy 

the  meeting  was  so  pleased  with  the  spirit  thus 
shown  that  he  said:  "That's  fine  business." 
Realizing  the  importance  of  the  action  about 

that  indolence,  indifference  and  restriction  of  production 
should  be  discountenanced. 

6.  I  believe  that  the  provision  of  adequate  means  for  uncov- 
ering grievances  and  promptly  adjusting  them,  is  of  funda- 
mental importance  to  the  successful  conduct  of  industry. 

7.  I  believe  that  the  most  potent  measure  in  bringing  about 
industrial  harmony  and  prosperity  is  adequate  representation 
of  the  parties  in  interest;  that  existing  forms  of  representa- 
tion should  be  carefully  studied  and  availed  of  in  so  far  as 
they  may  be  found  to  have  merit  and  are  adaptable  to  the 
peculiar  conditions  in  the  various  industries. 

8.  I  believe  that  the  most  effective  structure  of  representa- 
tion is  that  which  is  built  from  the  bottom  up,  which  includes 
all  employes,  and,  starting  with  the  election  of  representa- 
tives in  each  industrial  plant,  the  formation  of  joint  works 
committees,  of  joint  district  councils  and  annual  joint  confer- 
ences of  all  the  parties  in  interest  in  a  single  industrial  cor- 
poration, can  be  extended  to  include  all  plants  in  the  same 
industry,  all  industries  in  a  community,  in  a  nation  and  in  the 
various  nations. 

9.  I  believe  that  the  application  of  right  principles  never 
fails  to  effect  right  relations;  that  the  letter  killeth  and  the 
spirit  maketh  alive ;  that  forms  are  wholly  secondary  while 
attitude  and  spirit  are  all  important,  and  that  only  as  the  par- 
ties in  industry  are  animated  by  the  spirit  of  fair  play,  justice 
to  all  and  brotherhood,  will  any  plans  which  they  may  mutu- 
ally work  out  succeed. 

10.  I  believe  that  that  man  renders  the  greatest  social  serv- 
ice who  so  cooperates  in  the  organization  of  industry  as  to 
afford  to  the  largest  number  of  men  the  greatest  opportunity 
for  self -development  and  the  enjoyment  by  every  man  of  those 
benefits  which  his  own  work  adds  to  the  wealth  of  civilization. 


The  Modern  Spirit  19 

to  be  taken,  before  he  called  for  the  vote  he 
said :  "The  action  you  men  are  taking  here  is 
more  significant  than  many  of  you  realize. 
Your  action  here  will  go  farther  than  you 
think,  and  the  benefit  of  it  will  be  greater  than 
you  believe."  No  one  will  be  so  bold  as  to 
believe  that  acceptance  of  general  principles  or 
even  the  adoption  of  an  industrial  creed  means 
that  the  industrial  millennium  is  in  sight.  But 
it  betokens  a  change  in  philosophy,  a  change  in 
attitude.  It  means  that  so  far  as  the  leaders 
of  industry  are  concerned,  the  old  Bourbonism 
is  dead,  or  soon  will  be.  Under  the  title 
"Changing  Economic  Viewpoints,"  a  promi- 
nent Trust  Company  in  New  York  early  in 
November  presented  in  its  bulletin  "certain 
tendencies  of  the  time,  both  here  and  abroad." 
In  this  very  interesting  document,  it  says  that 
the  theory  of  economic  independence  "was 
based  upon  a  tacit  acceptance  of  the  German 
doctrine  that  a  state  of  commerce  is  a  state  of 
war,  a  doctrine  which  is  in  turn  based  upon  the 
false  and  outworn  theory  that  every  exchange 


20  American  Labor  Policy 

of  goods  or  services  must  be  to  the  disadvau 
tage  of  one  of  the  parties  concerned."  "The 
new  conception  of  what  men  owe  to  themselves 
and  to  each  other,"  it  says,  "which  has  been 
fostered  by  the  common  sufferings  and  un- 
dertakings of  the  war,  is  permeated  by  the  idea 
of  service.  That  idea  is  expressed  in  a  host  of 
men  drawn  from  every  corner  of  the  world  to 
put  down  once  and  for  all  the  injustices  of  a  mili- 
tary autocracy.  It  runs  through  the  thought 
of  all  those  who  stand  behind  these  arm- 
ies. It  is  the  very  heart  of  the  ideal  for  which 
we  fight.  Whatever  terms  of  peace  are  drawn 
the  animating  purpose  of  them  will  be  service. 
And  it  is  upon  a  basis  of  service  that  the  en- 
during plans  of  any  nation  for  reconstruction 
will  be  grounded."  This  in  a  Trust  Company 
bulletin ! 


Organization  in  Industry  21 


THE   NECESSITY   FOR   LEADERSHIP   AND   OR- 
GANIZATION   IN    INDUSTRY 

Even  Lenine  recognizes  that  the  proletariat 
imperialism  cannot  be  secured  without  the  aid 
of  "the  biggest  of  the  bourgeois  specialists" 
and  that  "without  the  direction  of  specialists  of 
different  branches  of  knowledge,  technique  and 
experience,  the  transformation  toward  Social- 
ism is  impossible,  for  Socialism  demands  a 
conscious  mass  movement  toward  a  higher 
productivity  of  labor  in  comparison  with  capi- 
talism and  on  the  basis  which  has  been  at- 
tained by  capitalism." 1  It  will,  under  his 
regime,  be  necessary  to  "keep  accurate  and 
conscientious  accounts;  conduct  business  eco- 
nomically; do  not  loaf;  do  not  steal;  maintain 
strict  discipline  at  work."  *  And  Dr.  Anna  In- 
german,  a  Socialist  who  had  been  seven  months 
in  Russia,  is  reported  to  have  said:  "I  feel 
that  only  the  genius  of  capitalism  can  build  up 

1  Nikolai  Lenine :    "The  Soviets  at  Work." 


22  American  Labor  Policy 

Russia  economically  and  make  it  strong  and 
virile  and  healthy.  After  capitalism  has  done 
its  work,  Russia  will  be  prepared  for  Social- 
ism." When  our  country  found  itself  con- 
fronted with  the  task  of  quickly  mobilizing 
its  productive  powers,  it  called  upon  these 
"bourgeois"  specialists,  the  Schwabs,  the 
Baruchs,  the  Ryans,  the  Stettiniuses,  the 
Goethals — all  the  men  of  trained  specializa- 
tion, who  knew  what  order,  discipline  and  or- 
ganization were  like,  and  in  addition  possessed 
the  qualities  of  driving  leadership. 

Back  of  the  motors  humming, 

Back  of  the  belts  that  sing, 
Back  of  the  hammers  drumming, 

Back  of  the  cranes  that  swing, 
There  is  the  eye  which  scans  them 

Watching  through  stress  and  strain, 
There  is  the   Mind  which  plans   them  — 

Back  of  the  brawn,  the  Brain! 

Might  of  the  roaring  boiler, 

Force  of  the  engine's  thrust, 
Strength  of  the  sweating  toiler, 

Greatly  in  these  we  trust. 
But  back  of  them  stands  the  Schemer, 


Organization  in  Industry  23 

The  Thinker  who  drives  things  through ; 
Back  of  the  Job — the  Dreamer 

Who's  making  the  dream  come  true ! x 

It  is  not  the  birth  of  a  man  which  makes  his 
worth.  It  is  what  he  is  and  what  he  can  make 
of  himself.  The  genius  of  Foch  is  the  combi- 
nation of  those  rare  natural  qualities  of  leader- 
ship coupled  with  infinite  study  and  training. 
The  Haigs,  the  Petains  and  the  Pershings  were 
not  the  product  of  four  months'  training  in  an 
army  camp.  It  does  not  detract  from  the  ad- 
mirable qualities  displayed  by  our  American 
soldiers  to  say  that  not  one  of  them,  drafted 
under  the  Selective  Service  Regulations,  could 
have  become  a  Pershing  within  the  limited  time 
available.  The  future  industrial  organization, 
it  is  conceded  on  all  hands,  must  be  highly  pro- 
ductive. "What  the  nation  needs  is  undoubt- 
edly a  great  bound  onward  in  its  aggregate 
productivity,"  says  the  British  Labor  Party. 
Our  Secretary  of  Labor,  the  former  Vice-Pres- 
ident of  the  American  Federation  of  Labor, 

1  Berton  Braky :    "The  Thinker." 


24  American  Labor  Policy 

says:  "The  employer  and  the  employee  have 
a  mutual  interest  in  securing  the  largest  pos- 
sible production  with  a  given  amount  of  la- 
bor." *  Under  the  seal  of  the  United  States 
Department  of  Labor,  during  the  war  circu- 
lars were  distributed  like  the  following:  "Get 
the  habit  of  doing  things  right.  This  will 
mean:  Greater  Production,  Less  Waste,  In- 
creased Earnings."  "Boot  Straps.  We 
don't  try  to  pull  ourselves  up  by  our  boot  straps 
— do  we  ?  Then  why  try  to  get  richer  by  pro- 
ducing less?  However  much  we  may  want 
better  ways  of  distribution,  we  must  first  have 
Greater  Production  in  order  to  win  this  war. 
By  the  further  development  of  those  qualities 
of  enterprise,  initiative,  originality,  and  hustle, 
characteristic  of  the  American  people,  labor 
can  earn  an  additional  debt  of  gratitude  from 
our  country."  "Our  Children!  To  win  this 
war  we  all  must  do  our  best  regardless  of 
profit.  Production  is  the  big  thing.  This  ap- 
plies to  wage  earners  as  well  as  employers. 

1  The  Nation's  Business,  October,  19 17,  p.  66. 


Constitutionalizing  Industry  25 

We  cannot  start  by  stopping;  we  cannot  mul- 
tiply by  dividing;  we  must  forget  our  preju- 
dices and  drive  ahead."  These  injunctions, 
applied  in  war  times,  are  equally  applicable  in 
times  of  peace.  Those  who  desire  "better 
ways"  of  distribution  must  first  find  ways  of 
greater  production. 

Certainly  to  stop  the  wheels  of  production  by 
strikes  or  lockouts  or  industrial  revolution  in 
order  to  secure  a  better  order  of  distribution 
can  only  be  justified  if  there  is  no  other  way. 


THE   EFFORT   TO   CONSTITUTIONALIZE 
INDUSTRY 

In  the  reports  of  the  Commission  of  In- 
quiry into  Industrial  Unrest  in  Great  Britain,1 
arguing  in  support  of  a  system  for  organizing 
industry  in  which  organized  employees  and 
organized  employers  practically  control  the 
management  of  the  industry,  one  of  the  groups 
of  commissioners  says :     "If  we  may  adopt  the 

1  Bulletin  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  No.  237. 


26  American  Labor  Policy 

language  of  political  philosophy  it  would  give 
industry  a  large  measure  of  constitutional  gov- 
ernment in  place  of  what  in  theory  was  an  auto- 
cratic and  absolutist  system,  but  has  long  since 
ceased  to  be  so  in  practice."  *  The  experi- 
ments of  the  Colorado  Fuel  &  Iron  Company, 
the  Standard  Oil  Company,  the  Protocol  in  the 
garment  industry,2  are  all  experiments  in  the 
direction  of  "constitutionalizing  industry."  It 
will  be  conceded  that  when  it  is  proposed  to 
establish  by  law  a  method  of  organization  of 
industry  which  is  to  provide  a  legal  form  of 
government  in  each  industry,  the  knowledge 
and  experience  of  the  lawyer  should  be  of  serv- 
ice. But  here  a  word  of  caution.  The  train- 
ing of  the  lawyer  does  not  ordinarily  fit  him 
for  the  task,  for  no  scheme  of  organization  of 
industry  can  survive  which  does  not  take  ac- 
count of  all  the  business,  social  and  economic 
factors,  and  it  is  rare  that  the  lawyer  is 
equipped  in  all  of  these  fields.     To  the  extent, 

ip.  170. 

2  "Law  and  Order  in  Industry,"  by  the  writer. 


Morale  in  Industry  27 

however,  that  he  has  had  experience  in  these 
fields  and  in  all  of  them,  may  he  safely  trust 
his  own  judgment,  and  even  then  he  may  trust 
his  judgment  but  little  because  the  factors  are 
so  numerous  and  so  complex.  If  he  can  suc- 
ceed, however,  in  correlating  all  of  these  fac- 
tors, he  will  have  in  hand  "the  facts  of  the 
case"  and  is  then  ready  to  apply  principles. 
Obviously,  it  will  be  impossible  to  present 
within  the  limits  of  this  book  all  of  the  facts, 
and  there  is  the  certain  risk  that  in  the  state- 
ment of  some  facts  some  others  may  be  over- 
looked. But  we  should  at  the  threshold  be 
certain  to  take  cognizance  of  dangers  we  must 
avoid. 


MORALE   IN    INDUSTRY 

The  intangible  psychological  factor  of 
morale  was  reckoned  very  high  by  Napoleon  in 
his  day.  "In  war,"  said  he,  "the  moral  is  to 
the  physical  as  three  to  one."  We  in  our  day 
know   that   the   proportion   is   greater.     The 


28  American  Labor  Policy 

chart  kept  by  the  Secretary  of  War,  showing 
the  decline  and  elevation  of  morale  in  Ger- 
many and  its  bearing  upon  the  success  and 
failure  of  the  German  Army,  showed  that 
there  was  almost  immediate  reaction  upon  the 
righting  at  the  front  of  the  rise  or  fall  of  the 
morale  back  of  the  front,  and  we  know  that 
Cantigny,  Chateau-Thierry,  Belleau  Wood 
and  the  Argonne  Forest  were  made  possible  for 
the  Allies  only  through  the  splendid  morale  of 
the  American  Army.  The  Y.  M.  C.  A.  work, 
the  Y.  W.  C.  A.  work,  the  Jewish  Wel- 
fare Board,  the  Salvation  Army — all  these 
agencies  were  fostered  and  encouraged  by  our 
Government  as  military  agencies  because  of 
their  value  in  keeping  up  the  morale  of  our 
men,  and  the  circulars  from  which  we  have 
already  quoted  were  part  of  the  well  planned 
work  of  the  Department  of  Labor  to  keep 
up  the  morale  of  the  producing  force  of 
our  country  during  the  war.  Our  difference 
with  the  enemy  upon  this  subject  of  morale  was 
not  that  he  disagreed  with  us  concerning  its 


Morale  in  Industry  29 

importance,  but  that  his  methods  for  endeavor- 
ing to  destroy  our  morale,  as  well  as  for  pre- 
serving his  own,  seemed  to  be  grotesquely  un- 
intelligent and  proved  to  be  psychologically 
unsound.  Much  has  been  learned  through  the 
war  of  the  connection  between  mental  attitude 
and  exertion  of  physical  power.  In  the  meth- 
ods for  preserving  morale  to  be  employed  many 
differences  of  opinion  have  been  developed. 
Mr.  Fosdick  has  told  the  story  1  of  the  differ- 
ences that  arose  with  the  French  in  the  fight 
against  venereal  disease.  The  French  be- 
lieved in  "toleration"  and  "regulation."  They 
had  for  generations  licensed  brothels  and  reg- 
istered prostitutes.  We  were  for  "absolute 
continence"  and  we  won  out.  The  result  of 
the  experiences  of  the  American  officials  was 
that  they  were  able  to  convince  the  French 
Government  that  what  Abraham  Flexner 
called  "abolition"  as  distinguished  from  "regu- 
lation" is  the  only  effective  mode  of  combating 

1  Raymond  B.  Fosdick :     "The  Fight  Against  Venereal  Dis- 
ease."   The  New  Republic,  November  30,  1918. 


30  American  Labor  Policy 

this  age-long  evil.  And  it  is  only  fair  to  the 
French  to  say  that  this  represents  a  change  in 
attitude  upon  the  part  of  our  own  military  lead- 
ers. General  Pershing  frankly  confesses  that 
he  has  completely  changed  his  policy  regarding 
camp  followers  which  he  followed  in  his  march 
into  Mexico  two  years  ago.  "The  cause  of  his 
taking  at  that  time  a  course  which  he  now  re- 
grets was  not  any  lack  of  revulsion  in  his  own 
soul,  but  merely  the  dominance  of  the  old  iron- 
clad army  tradition  which  taught  that  certain 
evils  are  inevitable  in  army  life.  To-day  with 
larger  outlook  General  Pershing  stoutly  re- 
fuses to  regard  any  wrong  thing  as  inevitable 
in  the  Army  or  anywhere  else.  He  does  not 
hesitate  to  acknowledge  to  intimate  friends  a 
complete  reversal  of  attitude  on  this  subject 
since  his  Mexican  experience."  *  With  these 
lessons  fresh  in  mind  of  morale  affecting  the 
putting  forth  of  material  strength,  are  we  not 
obliged  now  to  consider  afresh,  disregarding 

1  Literary  Digest,  November  16,  1918,  quoting  from  the  Con- 
gregationalist,  Boston. 


Morale  in  Industry  31 

all  our  age-old  prejudices,  the  relationship  of 
morale  to  productivity  in  industry?  If  we 
think  this  through  clear  to  the  end,  we  shall 
have  a  social  revolution.  We  shall  turn  indus- 
try upside  down  and  inside  out ;  but  we  shall  do 
it  in  orderly  fashion,  and  we  will  no  more  dis- 
turb the  processes  of  industry  in  the  reorgan- 
ization than  we  disturbed  the  fighting  of  our 
men  while  introducing  the  newer  attitude  to- 
ward their  morale.  Space  will  not  permit  us 
to  go  into  all  the  details  of  this  phase  of  our 
problem.  We  shall  pass  rapidly  over  them. 
First  of  all,  we  shall  say,  of  course,  that  no 
man  or  woman  will  be  socially  productive  un- 
less he  or  she  is  in  good  physical  health.  We 
shall  say,  of  course,  the  "living  wage,"  what- 
ever that  may  involve.  We  shall  say,  of 
course,  proper  housing  conditions.  We  shall 
say,  of  course,  continuous  employment.  How 
can  a  man  do  his  best  work  if  he  lives  con- 
stantly in  dread  that  his  family  may  not  have 
enough  to  eat?  We  shall  prescribe  clean  and 
sanitary   factories,   and,   we   shall   treat   the 


32  American  Labor  Policy 

worker,  of  course,  as  we  have  treated  the  sol- 
dier, as  a  human  being.  "What  is  wanted," 
said  the  British  Commission  on  Industrial  Un- 
rest, "is  a  new  spirit;  a  more  human  spirit,  one 
in  which  economic  and  business  considerations 
will  be  influenced  and  corrected,  and,  it  is 
hoped,  will  be  eventually  controlled  by  human 
and  ethical  considerations.  To  bring  this 
about  it  must  be  realized  that  the  main  cause 
of  unrest  lies  deeper  than  any  merely  mate- 
rial consideration,  that  the  problem  is  funda- 
mentally a  human  and  not  an  economic  prob- 
lem. Theoretically,  industry  is  carried  on  by 
the  cooperation  of  capital  and  labor ;  in  practice 
it  is  carried  on  by  a  system  of  checks  and  bal- 
ances, one  in  which  the  equilibrium  is  easily 
upset  by  a  little  additional  momentum  on  one 
side  or  the  other.  It  often  appears  as  if  it 
were  the  resultant  of  the  constant  conflict  of 
forces  rather  than  of  a  cooperative  effort."  l 
The  New  York  Chamber  of  Commerce  Com- 

1  Bulletin  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  No.  237, 
p.  169. 


Morale  in  Industry  33 

mittee  on  Industrial  Problems  and  Relations 
says:  "It  has  been  proven  over  and  over 
again,  in  industry,  that  irrespective  of  such 
conditions  as  rate  of  wages  paid,  as  cost  of 
management,  or  as  rates  of  interest  or  other 
return  on  capital,  the  condition  of  hearty  co- 
operation outweighed  all  the  others.  It  is  a 
by-word  of  production  that  the  cheapest  and 
best  product  is  compatible  with  the  largest 
earnings  for  wage-earners,  the  highest  salaries 
for  managers,  and  the  largest  profits  for  capi- 
talists, only  providing  that  all  three  elements 
fully  cooperate.  In  this  we  find  the  moral  fac- 
tor of  manufacturing  which  outweighs  all 
the  physical  factors."  l  A  step  forward  has 
been  taken  by  the  British  Labor  Party  in  its 
clear  recognition  of  the  fact  that  the  workers 
of  the  world  are  not  merely  the  manual  work- 
ers, but  the  "brainworkers"  and  the  various 
professional  men.  In  opening  the  doors  to  the 
"clerk,"  the  teacher,  the  doctor,  the  minister  of 
religion,  the  British  Labor  Party  "claims  the 

1  Italics  ours. 


34  American  Labor  Policy 

support  of  four-fifths  of  the  whole  nation." 
But  still  we  suffer  from  the  Aristotelian 
philosophy  that  somehow  or  other  there  is  a 
clear  division  of  human  beings  into  laboring 
and  leisure  classes.1  As  pointed  out  by  John 
Dewey,  increasing  political  and  economic 
emancipation  of  the  "masses"  has  affected  edu- 
cation. The  development  of  a  common  school 
system  of  education,  public  and  free,  "has  de- 
stroyed the  idea  that  learning  is  properly  a 
monopoly  of  the  few  who  are  predestined  by 
nature  to  govern  social  affairs."  2  Neverthe- 
less it  is  true  that  there  prevails  very  generally 
the  idea  that  "a  truly  cultural  or  liberal  educa- 
tion cannot  have  anything  in  common,  directly 
at  least,  with  industrial  affairs."  3 

It  is  frequently  said  that,  in  the  last  analy- 
sis, the  progress  of  industry  depends  upon  the 
operation  of  economic  laws;  but  precisely  as 
we  have  within  the  period  of  our  own  partici- 

1  See    Dewey :     "Democracy    and    Education,"    chapter    on 
"Labor  and  Leisure." 

2  Idem.,  p.  300. 
*Idem.,  p.  301. 


Morale  in  Industry  35 

pation  in  the  war  changed  our  attitude  towards 
licensed  prostitution,  we  are  changing  with 
lightning-like  rapidity  our  conceptions  of  what 
constitutes  "economic  law."  The  late  Pro- 
fessor Carleton  H.  Parker,  in  his  paper  "Mo- 
tives in  Economic  Life"  (read  before  the 
Philadelphia  meeting  of  the  American  Eco- 
nomic Association),1  pointed  out  that  econo- 
mists had  speculated  little  on  human  motives; 
that  they  had  not  been  sufficiently  curious 
"about  the  great  basis  of  fact  which  dynamic 
and\behavioristic  psychology Jhas  gathered  to 
illustrate  the  instinct  stimulus  to  human  ac- 
tivity." 2  It  is  M'Dougall,  the  Oxford  social 
psychologist,  who  says  that  "It  would  be  a  libel 
not  altogether  devoid  of  truth  to  say  that  the 
classical  political  economy  was  a  tissue  of  false 
conclusions  drawn  from  false  psychological 
assumptions."  3  We  need  not  accept,  for  the 
purposes  of  our  discussion,  the  inventory  of  in- 

1  The  American  Economic  Review,  Vol.  VIII,  No.  I   (Sup- 
plement), March,  1918. 

2  P.  214. 

3  P.  215. 


36  American  Labor  Policy 

stincts  made  by  Parker  in  the  article  to  which 
we  refer,  nor  confine  ourselves  to  the  conclu- 
sions of  modern  psycho-analysts  like  Freud 
and  Jung  and  Adler.  There  are  certain  com- 
monplace and  common-sense  facts  to  which  we 
have  blinded  ourselves  heretofore  and  which 
it  is  vital,  if  we  are  to  draw  up  a  plan  for  the 
constitutional  government  of  industry,  we  take 
account  of  in  our  reckoning.  No  pilot  ever 
steered  ship  upon  the  rocks  with  less  care  for 
the  sounding  of  the  buoys  than  we  should,  if 
we  ignored  the  soundings  that  daily  ring  in  our 
ears.  We  know  that  the  real  incentive  to 
work  is  interest  in  the  work,  not  the  pay  got 
out  of  it.  The  production  of  a  scholarly  brief 
gives  the  author  greatest  satisfaction  not 
through  the  drink  and  food  and  clothing  which 
he  may  purchase  out  of  the  fee  received  by  way 
of  compensation,  but  in  the  sheer  joy  of  intel- 
lectual research  and  creative  production.  As 
matter  of  fact,  he  is  paid  twice,  once  in  the 
joy  of  doing  the  work,  and  again  in  the  coin 
he  receives.     This  element  of  interest  is  the 


Morale  in  Industry  27 

factor  of  morale  in  productivity.  There  is  no 
Egyptian  mystery  to  be  dug  from  the  tombs 
in  the  every  day  fact  that  boys  and  girls  prefer 
to  go  into  offices  rather  than  into  factories. 
There  is  no  office,  law  or  business,  so  dull  or 
so  stupid  which  is  not  more  interesting  for  the 
young  messenger  than  the  feeding  of  a  ma- 
chine in  a  factory.  The  bookkeeper  does  more 
than  keep  track  of  accounts.  Through  his 
trial  and  balance  sheet  he  acquires  an  under- 
standing of  the  entire  business,  its  venture  as 
an  enterprise — the  relationship  of  all  its  finan- 
cial details  to  the  total  result.  The  salesman 
has  the  interesting  experience  of  travel  and 
contact  with  differing  types  of  human  nature 
— perhaps  the  most  interesting  of  all  human 
experiences.  The  servant  girls  who  braved 
the  rigor  of  stormy  weather  and  became  con- 
ductorettes  upon  our  street  cars  found  in  the 
contact  with  new  as  well  as  with  familiar  faces 
an  interest  more  than  compensatory  for  physi- 
cal hardships.  The  acquisition  of  habits  of 
care  and  accuracy  in  the  drawing  of  legal  in- 


38  American  Labor  Policy 

struments,  knowledge  of  the  forms,  as  well  as 
knowledge  of  the  way  in  which  actually  to 
practice  law,  is  more  likely  to  be  acquired  by 
the  stenographer  and  typewriter  who  later 
takes  up-  the  law  than  by  the  law  clerk  who 
comes  fresh  from  the  university.  It  is  this 
interest  in  things  going  on  and  being  done  and 
in  process  of  creation  that  makes  life  worth 
living.  Professor  Taussig  caught  this  in  "In- 
ventors and  Money-Makers."  Says  he: 
"The  moral  teacher  tells  us  we  should  do  our 
daily  work  with  joy.  The  economist  com- 
monly tells  us  that  it  is  an  effort  undergone 
because  compensated  by  wages  or  profits,  a 
'disutility/  a  sacrifice.  Underlying  almost  all 
economic  theory  is  the  assumption  that  work 
is  an  irksome  thing,  done  for  pay  and  in  pro- 
portion to  pay."  x  And  yet  the  Edisons  in  in- 
dustry get  their  greatest  joy  out  of  "the  fun 
of  it."  "Every  one  of  us  is  conscious  of  a 
satisfaction  in  doing  his  work  handily  and 
well,  in  seeing  the  product  grow  under  his  own 

1  Pp.  55-56. 


Morale  in  Industry  39 

hands."  l  Taussig  very  properly  refers  to  the 
modern  organization  of  industry  as  tending  to 
"smother"  this  satisfaction  "in  a  great  and 
probably  growing  proportion  of  men, — a  most 
ominous  aspect  of  our  social  and  economic  sys- 
tem." *  And  in  her  recent  little  book,  "Cre- 
ative Impulse  in  Industry,"  Helen  Marot  also 
concludes  that  the  morale  of  industry  is  not 
improved  by  the  conception  that  the  "only  rea- 
son a  sane  man  can  have  for  working"  is  "be- 
ing paid  off,"  or  that  "after  he  is  paid  off  the 
assumption  is  his  pleasure  will  begin."  2  The 
vice  of  the  modern  factory  organization,  she 
says,  lies  in  its  destruction  of  "creative  desire 
and  individual  initiative  as  it  excludes  the 
workers  from  participation  in  creative  experi- 
ence." 3  Nearly  all  labor  union  leaders  accept 
the  older  economic  philosophy  that  work  is 
something  to  be  endured  in  order  to  secure 
leisure.  "They  desire  a  shorter  work  day 
among  other  things  so  that  there  may  be  op- 

1  p.  57. 

2  p.  9. 

3  p.  12. 


4-0  American  Labor  Policy 

portunity  for  leisure  and  recreation,"  says 
John  P.  Frey,  editor  of  the  International 
Molders'  Journal,  writing  of  ''The  Ideals  in 
the  American  Labor  Movement." *  "They 
desire  to  terminate  each  day's  labor  with  suf- 
ficient vitality  left  to  enjoy  the  society  of  their 
fellow  men,  to  study  and  to  better  prepare 
themselves  for  the  problems  which  face  them 
as  wage  earners,  to  enjoy  some  of  the  blessings 
which  the  Almighty  has  so  bounteously  spread 
at  every  hand." 2  Thus  labor  unionist  and 
capitalist  together  conspire  to  secure  general 
acceptation  of  the  doctrine  of  human  conduct 
that  the  less  work  you  do  and  the  more  you 
can  make  that  pay,  the  better  member  of  so- 
ciety you  are.  Whatever  work  you  do — ac- 
cording to  this  doctrine — you  do  under  com- 
pulsion, in  order  that  out  of  what  you  receive 
you  shall  then  be  able  to  enjoy  life.  How  can 
such  a  philosophy  of  political  economy  increase 
the  productivity  of  a  nation  ?     Does  it  not  lead 

1  The  International  Journal  of  Ethics,  July,  1918. 
*  Pp.  494-5. 


Morale  in  Industry  41 

inevitably  to  constant  effort  to  shorten  the 
hours  of  labor  and  to  increase  the  compensa- 
tion, regardless  of  the  cost  of  production  and 
regardless  of  the  cost  of  living  following  the 
cost  of  production?  Instead  of  eliciting  the 
interest  of  the  worker  in  his  work,  we  cultivate 
a  morale  which  detracts  from  his  work  and  we 
ourselves  set  myriads  of  examples  by  which 
to  confirm  him  in  the  tendency.  The  political 
economy  is  the  lazy  man's  political  economy. 
It  is  un-American,  it  is  contrary  to  all  our  other 
habits  of  thinking,  and  it  is  opposed  to  every 
plank  in  every  platform  upon  which  we  set  out 
to  conduct  the  war.  Not  for  a  single  instant 
did  we  think  of  making  either  our  soldier  at  the 
front  or  our  riveter  in  the  shipyard  a  mere  cog 
in  a  war  machine.  We  kept  constantly  before 
him  the  aim  and  the  purpose  of  the  great  cre- 
ative task  in  which  he  was  engaged  and  empha- 
sized the  contribution  which  he  was  to  make. 
We  no  more  expected  by  emptying  into  their 
hands  the  contents  of  pay  envelopes  our  men  to 
risk  their  lives  at  the  front  or  to  put  forth 


42  American  Labor  Policy 

their  best  energies  in  the  munitions  plants 
than  we  expected  to  win  the  war  with  paste- 
board aeroplanes  and  paper  shells.  Are  we 
not  rapidly  coming  to  the  conclusion  that  as 
we  discover  the  ethical  conception  of  the  sanc- 
tity of  sex  relationship  to  be  at  one  with  the 
utilitarian  conception  of  sound,  healthy  sol- 
diers, we  shall  likely  discover  that  the  ethical 
conception  of  personal  and  human  worth  is  at 
one  with  the  conception  of  sound  industrial  or- 
ganization? But  how  else  are  we  to  conduct 
a  democracy  wherein  the  determining  policies 
of  the  nation  are  the  result  of  the  judgments 
and  opinions  of  the  majority?  The  demo- 
cratic conception  is  that  all  men  have  personal 
worth,  that  there  is  a  dignity  to  the  opinion  of 
every  man.  How  can  we  expect  emergence  of 
enlightened  public  opinion  upon  those  matters 
essential  to  a  sound  and  well-ordered  democ- 
racy if  the  very  processes  of  industry  contract 
the  mind,  destroy  the  creative  instincts,  and 
lessen  the  growth  of  individual  men  and 
women?     If  this  conception  of  a  new  political 


Morale  in  Industry  43 

economy  resultant  from  a  better  understanding 
of  human  nature  is  accepted  by  the  industrial 
leadership  of  our  country,  it  means  a  social 
revolution.  In  principle  it  was  accepted  at  the 
Atlantic  City  meeting  by  the  War  Emergency 
Congress,  and  the  presiding  officer  did  right  in 
warning  the  business  men  present  that  they 
might  not  immediately  realize  the  consequences 
of  the  doctrines  to  which  they  subscribed. 

Nevertheless,  no  forward  looking  legal  plan 
is  destined  even  to  partial  fruition  unless  it 
starts  with  these  fundamental  considerations, 
whether  they  be  called  political  economy,  sound 
ethics,  or  modern  psychology.  In  the  light  of 
our  military  experience,  they  can  best  be  de- 
scribed as  the  factor  of  morale  in  industry. 

If  law  is  to  be  regarded  not  as  the  dull 
science  of  established  precedent,  but  also  the 
art  of  constructive  social  engineering,  we 
shall  need  always  to  keep  in  mind  these  factors 
of  our  problem  if  we  are  to  arrive  at  a  sound 
result. 


44  American  Labor  Policy 

HIRING   AT   WILL THE   RIGHT   OF   DIS- 
CHARGE  THE    RIGHT    TO    STRIKE 

THE    INTEREST   OF   THE 

COMMUNITY 

The  present  legal  relationship  between  em- 
ployer and  employee,  especially  in  the  fac- 
tories, is  one  of  "hiring  at  will" :  that  is  to  say, 
the  employee  is  free  to  leave  when  he  chooses, 
the  employer  is  free  to  discharge  when  he 
chooses.  This  is  the  legal  situation.  The  eco- 
nomic situation  is  perilous.  Already  men  are 
becoming  aware  of  the  fact  that  under  this 
arrangement  the  economic  loss  is  tremendous.1 
Investigation  by  the  New  Jersey  State  Depart- 
ment of  Labor  and  Statistics  of  the  cost  of 
unemployment  to  2556  firms  alone  disclosed 
a  loss  of  $363,000,000  in  one  year.  Not 
only  is  this  the  cost  in  loss  of  output,  but 

1  See  "Steadying  Employment,"  Supplement  to  the  Annals 
of  the  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science, 
May,  1916.  See  "Stabilizing  Industrial  Employment,"  the  An- 
nals of  the  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Science, 
May,  1917.  See  also  "The  Problem  of  Labor  Turnover,"  by 
Paul  H.  Douglas,  the  American  Economic  Review,  June,  1918. 


Hiring  and  Firing  45 

managers  are  fast  coming  to  realize  that  un- 
employment or  slack  time  is  the  chief  cause  of 
the  rapid  shift  of  employees  from  shop  to  shop. 
As  one  employer  puts  it:  "We  found  that, 
while  our  men  could  make  $3  or  $4  a  day  when 
they  worked,  they  rarely  did  because  of  the 
time  that  was  lost  through  slack  orders,  wait- 
ing for  changes  in  the  dyes,  etc.  As  a  result, 
they  were'dissatisfied  and  we  couldn't  hold  our 
best  men."  *  Another  puts  the  proposition 
conversely :  "We  can  keep  our  help  and,  inci- 
dentally, get  the  best  help  of  our  class,  not 
because  we  pay  a  higher  rate  of  wages — for 
as  a  matter  of  fact  our  rate  is  somewhat  lower, 
— but  because  we  guarantee  our  help  steady 
employment  and  our  twenty-five  years'  repu- 
tation bears  out  our  claim."  1  Analysis  of 
the  employment  figures  for  one  year  in 
fifty-seven  Detroit  plants  disclosed  that  the 
average  turnover  of  employees  was  252  per 
cent.2     In  the  Ford  Company,  from  October, 

1  "Steadying  Employment,"  p.  45. 

2  Boyd  Fisher :    "How  to  Reduce  the  Labor  Turnover,"  the 


46  American  Labor  Policy 

191 2,  to  October,  191 3,  54,000  men  were  hired 
to  maintain  an  average  working  force  of 
13,000 — a  labor  turnover  of  416  per  cent,  for 
one  year.  Of  course,  the  effect  of  unemploy- 
ment upon  the  community  is  not  confined  to 
the  economic  loss.  It  is  the  chief  contributing 
cause  to  conditions  which  make  it  necessary 
to  support  charitable  institutions  and  hospitals. 
More  than  that,  it  is  the  disease-breeding  germ 
that  leads  to  social  insanity.  Professor 
Parker  wrote  before  his  death :  '  "The  Amer- 
ican I.  W.  W.  is  a  neglected  and  lonely  hobo 
worker,  usually  malnourished  and  in  need  of 
medical  care.  He  is  as  far  from  being  a 
scheming  syndicalist,  after  the  French  model, 
as  the  imagination  might  conceive."  Dis-con- 
tinuity  of  employment  is  probably  the  chief 
provocative  cause  of  industrial  unrest.  A 
large  migratory  working  force  "is"  not  only 
"economically  an  intolerable  waste"  but  "so- 

Annals  of  the  American  Academy  of  Political  and  Social  Sci- 
ence, May,  T917,  p.  14. 

i"The  I.  W.  W.,"  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  November,  1917,  p. 
651,  at  p.  656. 


Hiring  and  Firing  47 

cially  it  is  a  disintegrating  element  in  society. 
It  signifies,  too  often,  men  without  responsi- 
bility of  home  or  home-making,  men  possessed 
of  a  feeling  of  injustice  against  lack  of  con- 
tinuity of  employment,  serving  as  inflammable 
material  for  beguiling  agitators  to  work 
upon."  l  Let  us  turn  for  a  moment  to  the 
worker's  point  of  view.  The  worker  always 
feels  that  the  job  belongs  to  him,  after  he  has 
been  in  it  for  any  length  of  time.  "The  work- 
ers," says  Grant,  "feel  they  have  a  property 
right  in  the  jobs  they  formerly  held.  That  the 
law  holds  they  have  no  such  right,  and  that 
anyone  who  is  willing  to  accept  the  conditions, 
shall  have  a  right  to  fill  the  jobs,  without  fear 
of  molestation,  does  not  alter  the  situation  in 
the  minds  of  the  workers." 2  The  British 
Commissioners  of  Inquiry  into  Industrial  Un- 
rest for  Wales  and  Monmouthshire,  in  their 

1  Report  of  President  Wilson's  Mediation  Commission,  New 
York  Evening  Post,  February  II,  1918. 

2  Luke  Grant :  Report  on  The  National  Erectors'  Associa- 
tion and  The  International  Association  of  Bridge  and  Struc- 
tural Ironworkers.  U.  S.  Commission  on  Industrial  Rela- 
tions, p.  109. 


48  American  Labor  Policy 

recommendations,  say  that  there  are  two  prin- 
ciples which  appear  to  them  to  be  fundamental, 
one  of  which  is  "That  every  employee  should 
be  guaranteed  what  we  may  call  'security  of 
tenure';  that  is,  that  no  workman  should  be 
liable  to  be  dismissed  except  with  the  consent 
of  his  fellow  workmen  as  well  as  his  em- 
ployer." *  Without  accepting  this  statement 
with  all  of  its  implications,  it  nevertheless  indi- 
cates the  growing  recognition  of  the  fact  that 
"security  of  tenure"  is  one  of  the  aims  of  the 
worker.  In  such  seasonal  industries  as  the 
garment  industries,  it  proved  to  be  the  rock 
upon  which  the  attempt  at  "constitutionalizing 
the  industry"  went  to  smash.2  The  free  right 
of  the  employer  to  discharge  is  undoubtedly 
one  of  the  most  effective  measures  for  main- 
taining discipline  in  the  factory — when  there 
is  an  available  surplus  supply  of  labor.  When 
there  is  no  surplus  but  instead  a  shortage  of 
labor,  it  is  a  blank  cartridge.     The  experts 

1  Bulletin  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  No.  237, 
p.  170. 

2  See  "Law  and  Order  in  Industry,"  by  the  writer. 


Hiring  and  Firing  49 

who  are  now  studying  problems  of  employment 
are  giving  a  large  part  of  their  attention  to  the 
matter  of  "hiring  and  firing."  Too  often  the 
foreman  uses  his  power  merely  as  a  means  of 
discipline,  or,  as  one  large  employer  has  put 
it,  "to  keep  the  fear  of  God  in  their  hearts." 
The  unsupervised  authority  of  the  foreman 
contributes  to  the  high  labor  turnover.  Not 
only  does  he  bring  in  misfit  help,  who  will  soon 
leave,  and  discharge  needlessly,  but  his  arbi- 
trary exercise  of  power  drives  many  away. 
One  of  the  largest  employers  of  Philadelphia, 
who  works  under  the  foreman  system,  says: 
"I  have  time  and  again  seen  my  foreman  do 
things  that  were  absolutely  cruel;  and  yet  I 
am  powerless  to  prevent  it."  *  A  large  lace 
manufacturer  told  the  Philadelphia  secretary 
of  the  National  Lace  Weavers'  Union:  "I 
have  more  strikes  and  labor  disputes  as  a  re- 
sult of  the  foolish  and  arbitrary  acts  of  some 
foreman  than  any  other  cause."  \  But  it  is 
safe  to  say  that  employers  are  hardly  ready  to 

1  "Steadying  Employment,"  p.  73. 


50  American  Labor  Policy 

accept  the  suggestion  of  the  Commissioners 
from  Wales  that  discharges  should  only  be  had 
with  the  consent  of  fellow  employees.  When 
the  City  Manager  of  Dayton  recently  disci- 
plined an  inspector  of  police  upon  serious 
charges,  the  welfare  association  of  the  pa- 
trolmen of  Dayton  insisted  that  the  patrolmen 
would  resign  in  a  body  if  the  inspector  did  not 
get  a  "square  deal."  At  that  time  the  City 
Manager  had  already  approved  the  dismissal 
of  the  officer,  and  his  appeal  was  in  the  hands 
of  the  Civil  Service  Commission.  This  con- 
duct on  the  part  of  the  welfare  association  of 
the  police  department  resulted  in  the  City  Man- 
ager issuing  an  order  forbidding  membership 
in  the  association,  upon  the  ground  that  it  did 
not  really  tend  "to  protect  the  public  interests 
and  promote  discipline  in  the  department."  * 
Similarly,  the  City  Manager  of  Altoona,  Penn- 
sylvania, having  suspended  a  captain  in  the 
fire  department,  received  notice  from  a  com- 

1  National  Municipal  Review,  November,  1918,  Vol.  VII,  No. 
6,  Total  No.  32,  p.  647. 


Hiring  and  Firing  51 

mittee  of  the  men  that  unless  the  captain  was 
granted  pay  for  the  period  of  his  suspension, 
they  would  leave  the  service.  The  orders 
made  by  the  Manager  were  issued  upon  the 
recommendation  made  by  the  national  under- 
writers for  improving  the  service  and  after 
consultation  with  the  chief  of  the  bureau  of 
fire.1  In  the  garment  industry,  after  the  clash 
of  19 1 5,  the  Council  of  Conciliation,  consisting 
of  Dr.  Felix  Adler,  Chairman,  Louis  D.  Bran- 
deis,  Henry  Bruere,  George  W.  Kirchwey, 
Charles  L.  Bernheimer  and  Walter  C.  Noyes, 
found  that  "the  principle  of  industrial  effi- 
ciency and  that  of  respect  for  the  essential 
human  rights  of  the  workers  should  always  be 
applied  jointly,  priority  being  assigned  to 
neither.  Industrial  efficiency  may  not  be  sac- 
rificed to  the  interests  of  the  workers,  for  how 
can  it  be  to  their  interest  to  destroy  the  busi- 
ness on  which  they  depend  for  a  living,  nor 
may  efficiency  be  declared  paramount  to  the 
human  rights  of  the  workers;  for  how  in  the 

1  Idem.,  pp.  647-8. 


52  American  Labor  Policy 

long  run  can  the  industrial  efficiency  of  a  coun- 
try be  maintained  if  the  human  values  of  its 
workers  are  diminished  or  destroyed.  The 
delicate  adjustment  required  to  reconcile  the 
two  principles  named  must  be  made."  And 
applying  this  general  principle  to  the  practice 
of  hiring  and  discharge,  they  lay  down  the 
following : 

i.  Under  the  present  competitive  system,  the 
principle  of  industrial  efficiency  requires  that 
the  employer  shall  be  free  and  unhampered  in 
the  performance  of  the  administrative  func- 
tions which  belong  to  him,  and  this  must  be 
taken  to  include : 

(a)  That  he  is  entirely  free  to  select  his 
employees  at  his  discretion. 

(b)  That  he  is  free  to  discharge  the  incom- 
petent, the  insubordinate,  the  inefficient,  those 
unsuited  to  the  shop  or  those  unfaithful  to 
their  obligations. 

(c)  That  he  is  free  in  good  faith  to  reorgan- 
ize his  shop  whenever,  in  his  judgment,  the 


Hiring  and  Firing  53 

conditions  of  business  should  make  it  neces- 
sary for  him  to  do  so. 

(d)  That  he  is  free  to  assign  work  requiring 
a  superior  or  special  kind  of  skill  to  those  em- 
ployees who  possess  the  requisite  skill. 

(e)  That  while  it  is  the  dictate  of  common 
sense,  as  well  as  common  humanity,  in  the 
slack  season  to  distribute  work  as  far  as  pos- 
sible equally  among  wage  earners  of  the  same 
level  and  character  of  skill,  this  practice  can- 
not be  held  to  imply  the  right  to  a  permanent 
tenure  of  employment,  either  in  a  given  shop 
or  even  in  the  industry  as  a  whole.  A  clear 
distinction  must  be  drawn  between  an  ideal 
aim  and  a  present  right. 

It  is  this  delicate  problem  of  adjusting  the 
principle  of  industrial  efficiency  with  the  essen- 
tial human  rights  of  the  workers,  without  as- 
signing priority  to  either  principle,  which  we 
must  solve. 

In  the  award  of  the  National  War  Labor 
Board  in  the  case  of  the  employees  against 


54  American  Labor  Policy 

Sinclair  Refining  Company,  of  Coffeyville, 
Kansas,1  the  following  principles  were  laid 
down:  "No  employee  shall  be  discharged  as 
incompetent  after  30  days  in  the  employ  of  the 
company  unless  for  good  and  sufficient  cause, 
the  determination  of  which  shall  be  left  to  the 
decision  of  the  superintendent,  after  confer- 
ring with  the  coopers'  shop  committee.  .  .  . 
No  cooper  shall  be  discharged  or  removed 
from  the  service  of  the  company  without  just 
and  sufficient  cause.  Employees  who  believe 
they  have  been  unjustly  dealt  with  may  pre- 
sent their  grievances  to  the  shop  committee  of 
the  coopers  or  their  representatives  on  the 
shop  committee,  who  will  endeavor  to  have  the 
grievances  adjusted,  without  delay,  with  the 
shop  foreman.  If  adjustment  with  the  fore- 
man is  impossible,  the  case  may  be  appealed 
to  the  higher  officials  in  charge.  Should  it 
be  found  that  an  employee  has  been  unjustly 
discharged  or  dealt  with,  he  shall  be  reinstated 
and  paid  for  all  time  lost."     In  the  recently 

1  Docket  No.  395. 


Hiring  and  Firing  55 

announced  plan  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company,1 
provision  is  made  for  an  organization  of  the 
men  and  for  the  securing  of  protection  against 
unjustifiable  discharge.  Under  this  arrange- 
ment certain  offenses  justify  suspension  or  dis- 
missal without  notice.  These  include  carry- 
ing concealed  weapons,  fighting,  stealing,  fail- 
ure to  wear  safety  goggles,  etc.,  insubordina- 
tion, etc.,  while  in  other  cases  an  employee  may 
not  be  discharged  without  first  having  been 
notified  that  a  repetition  of  the  offense  will 
make  him  liable  to  dismissal.  A  foreman  will 
not  discharge  or  suspend.  He  must  report  the 
case  to  the  Employment  Department,  from 
whose  decision  the  employee  has  a  right  of  ap- 
peal. Provision  is  made  for  joint  conferences 
of  employees'  representatives  and  company 
representatives.  Similarly,  in  the  plan  of  the 
Colorado  Fuel  &  Iron  Co.,  provision  is  made 
for  organization  of  the  employees  and  the  re- 
dress of  grievances. 

There  is  still  another  factor  to  be  considered. 

1  New  York  Times,  April  7,  1918. 


56  American  Labor  Policy 

Not  only  in  police  and  in  fire  departments  is 
continuity  of  employment  vital  to  the  needs 
of  the  community,  but  in  the  operation  of  rail- 
roads "it  is  against  the  public  interest  that  men 
employed  on  railroad  or  other  public  utilities 
may,  without  notice,  exercise  their  right  to 
quit  their  jobs  in  a  group  thus  crippling  if  not 
totally  arresting  the  operations  of  public  utili- 
ties, to  the  great  damage  of  the  public."  *  In 
the  second  street  car  strike  of  19 16,  a  high 
power  dynamite  bomb  blew  up  the  110th  Street 
station  of  the  Lenox  Avenue  Subway  on  Oc- 
tober 25th.  It  gouged  a  hole  in  the  solid  con- 
crete and  steel  platform  and  the  roadbed,  shat- 
tered every  pane  of  glass  in  the  station,  and 
injured  four  persons.  Incidentally,  it  stopped 
for  the  time  one  of  the  vital  arteries  of  traffic 
of  an  entire  community.  For  this  crime  one 
of  the  secretaries  of  a  local  of  the  Amalga- 
mated Association  of  Street  and  Electric  Rail- 
way Employees  was  convicted  on  March  9th, 

1  Findings  in  Street  Car  Strike  by  Public  Service  Commis- 
sion, First  District,  New  York — Memorandum  of  August  ioth, 
1916. 


Hiring  and  Firing  $7 

the  jury  being  out  but  twelve  minutes.  Fol- 
lowing the  street  car  strike  in  Brooklyn  in  No- 
vember of  1918,  ninety-two  people  were  killed 
and  scores  were  injured  by  the  use,  it  is  al- 
leged, of  a  suddenly  hired  motorman  of  inex- 
perience, who  crashed  his  car  into  a  tunnel 
wall  and  ground  other  cars  into  splinters.  For 
this,  as  we  are  writing  this  article,  the  press 
reports  that  the  President  of  the  Brooklyn 
Rapid  Transit  Co.  and  several  other  officers 
are  indicted  for  manslaughter.  The  effect  of 
a  strike  upon  the  revenues  of  a  street  railway 
company  is  shown  in  the  table  in  the  foot- 
note.1 

1  Comparison  between  the  last  four  months  of  1916  and 
1915  clearly  shows  the  effect  of  the  strike  on  the  revenues  of 
the  companies: 

Increase       Ratio 
September-December       or  (D)      1916  to 
Group  I  1915  1916  decrease   1915=100 
Third  Ave.  system  $3,672,080  $2,110,378    D  $1,561,701      57.5 
Second  Ave.  R.  R.       292,009       177,580    D      114,429      60.8 
New  York  Rail- 
ways        4,567,255    3,041,122    D   1,526,132      66.6 

N.  Y.  &  Queens 
Co.  Ry 465,253       420,960    D       44,293      90.5 

Total  $8,996,598  $5,750,042    D  $3,246,556     63.1 


58 


American  Labor  Policy 


But  the  community  suffers  in  yet  another 
aspect.  It  loses  the  very  valuable  services  of 
competent  men.  The  Receiver  of  the  Second 
Avenue  Railroad,  one  of  the  companies  in- 

Grouf>  II 

Interborough  Sub- 
way     $6,191,011  $7,007,860  $816,849     113.2 

Interborough  Ele- 
vated         5,154,419    6,134,909  980,490    1 19.0 

Group  III 

Brooklyn  Rapid 
Transit   $9,033,586  $9,516,303  $482,717    I05-3 

Hudson  &  Man- 
hattan R.  R 1,225,757    1,350,808  125,141     110.2 

Queens  lines,  excl. 
N.  Y.  &  Q.  Co...       394,604      417,703  23,100    105.8 

Note. — Additions  and  subtractions  were  made  before 
the  cents  were  dropped. 

The  first  group  consists  of  the  surface  railways  in  Man- 
hattan and  The  Bronx  together  with  one  company  in  Queens 
that  was  seriously  involved.  In  the  second  group  are  the  In- 
terborough subway  and  elevated  lines,  on  which  a  strike  was 
called  but  did  not  seriously  interrupt  traffic.  The  third  group 
comprises  practically  all  of  the  remaining  companies  of  the 
city  which  were  not  involved  in  the  strike. 

The  passenger  receipts  of  the  surface  railways  in  Group  I 
during  the  entire  period  amounted  to  63  per  cent,  of  their  re- 
ceipts in  the  corresponding  months  of  1915,  having  declined 
from  9  to  524  million  dollars.  The  loss  was  therefore  at  least 
3*4  million  dollars.  It  was  probably  greater  since  the  1916 
receipts  would  normally  have  exceeded  the  191 5  receipts  as  a 
result   of    natural   growth   of   traffic.    Assuming   a  probable 


Hiring  and  Firing  59 

volved  in  the  strike  of  191 6,  testified  that  men 
who  before  the  strike  assured  him  that  they 
could  not  be  taken  away  "with  a  horse  and 
wagon,"  nevertheless  went  out  in  the  strike. 

rate  of  increase  of  5  per  cent.,  which  is  less  than  the  growth 
of  traffic  on  the  Brooklyn  and  Long  Island  lines  not  involved 
in  the  strike,  the  total  loss  to  the  first  group  of  companies 
may  be  computed  to  be  $3,750,000. 

The  strike  also  imposed  upon  the  companies  additional  ex- 
penses. These,  however,  were  offset  by  savings  in  wages  of 
regular  employees  in  the  case  of  most  of  the  companies,  so 
that  the  net  loss  was  not  quite  as  large  as  the  gross  loss  ex- 
cept in  the  case  of  the  Third  Avenue  companies.  The  follow- 
ing table  summarizes  losses  in  profits  as  well  as  decreases  in 
receipts : 

Loss  in  Car  Mileage,  Passenger  Receipts  and  Profits  of 
Roads  Adversely  Affected  by  the  Strike,  1916 

~  Decrease  in  Loss  in  profits 

Car  .  * 

..  passenger  (operating 

o  „    t->                  mileage  •  f*  •            \ 

Sept.-Dec.               ^      °  receipts  *  income) 

Amount    Per      Amount  Per 

1915 

cent.  cent. 

New  York  Rail- 
ways           66.40      $1,526,132  33.41   $1,105,021         68.62 

N.  Y.  &  Q.  Co. 
Ry 86.09  44,293    9,52         14,894—118.28 

Third  Avenue 
Ry-   61.01        1,561,70142.53     1,571,947—119.32 

Second  Avenue 

R.  R 65.34         114,42939.19        93,074—116.70 

65.44     $3,246,556  36.09  $2,784,938       92.22 

*  Includes  insignificant  amounts  of  revenue  from  express,  etc. 


60  American  Labor  Policy 

He  said :  "There  are  men  now  who  have  been 
out  going  on  six  months,  and  they  have  never 
shown  up  to  go  to  work.  You  will  see  them 
walking  around  by  the  depot.  They  have 
never  asked  to  go  to  work." 

There  is  still  one  more  phase  of  this  factor 
of  impermanence  of  tenure.  The  corollary  of 
the  right  to  discharge  at  any  time  because  of 
the  "at  will"  character  of  the  employment  is 
the  right  to  strike  at  any  time.  In  the  hear- 
ings before  the  Public  Service  Commission  of 
the  First  District,  New  York,  in  1917,  upon 
what  was  generally  called  the  "Straus  Plan," 

August 

Richmond   com- 
panies          82.59  $15,721  I7-78        $18,377         47.38 


Total    65.68      $3,2862,27735.91   $2,803,315         91-76 

In  the  case  of  the  Third  Avenue  system  an  operating  profit 
or  income  (before  interest  and  dividends)  of  $1,317,482  in 
1915  was  replaced  by  a  deficit  of  $254,466  in  1916,  a  decrease  of 
$1,571,948,  or  119  per  cent.  The  Second  Avenue  and  the  New 
York  &  Queens  County  Railway  companies  also  realized  a 
deficit  instead  of  a  profit  from  operation  while  the  New  York 
Railways  lost  69  per  cent,  of  its  operating  income  or  net  earn- 
ings. For  all  the  companies  listed,  net  earnings  fell  from 
$3,055,  099  to  $251,693,  a  decrease  of  $2,803,316,  or  92  per  cent. 


Hiring  and  Firing  61 

the  advocates  of  this  "freedom  of  contract  re- 
lationship" opposed  any  attempt  to  change  the 
insecurity  of  tenure.  The  President  of  the 
Brooklyn  Rapid  Transit  Co.  said:  "We  have 
a  splendid  body  of  men  who  are  trying  in  their 
own  way,  and,  I  think,  the  right  way,  to  solve 
these  difficult  problems,  and  we  ask  that  they 
be  left  alone  to  solve  them  in  that  way  so  long 
as  it  is  satisfactory  to  them  and  insures  public 
comfort."  l  Yet  twenty-two  months  later  this 
very  satisfactory  condition  culminates  in  the 
indictment  of  the  President  for  manslaughter 
as  one  of  the  casual  incidents  of  another  strike, 
and  two  months  later  a  receivership  of  the  rail- 
road takes  place!  And  taking  their  stand 
upon  precisely  the  same  principle  of  absolute 
freedom  of  contract  and  right  to  leave  at  any 
time,  labor  leaders  made  the  same  "let  us 
alone"  argument.  They  insisted  upon  the 
right  to  leave  "at  any  time  and  for  any  or  no 
reason."  In  the  garment  strike  of  1916,  fol- 
lowing the  lockout  declared  by  the  manufac- 

1  Minutes  of  Hearing,  February  8,  1917,  p.  139. 


62  American  Labor  Policy 

turers,  the  union  conceded  the  right  of  the 
manufacturers  "to  hire  and  discharge  their 
employees"  provided  "that,  for  any  arbitrary 
and  oppressive  exercise  of  this  right,  the  work- 
ers should  have  'the  right  to  strike/  "  And 
this  finally  culminated  in  an  amendment  of  the 
Protocol,  which  provided: 

"The  employer  shall  be  free,  according  to 
the  dictates  of  his  business,  to  increase  or  de- 
crease the  number  of  his  employes  to  meet 
the  conditions  in  his  factory,  and  to  retain  such 
of  his  employes  as  he  may  desire  on  the  basis 
of  efficiency. 

"The  workers,  however,  shall  have  the  right 
to  strike  against  any  employer  who  exercises 
the  power  to  increase  and  decrease  his  work- 
ing force,  as  above  set  forth,  arbitrarily  and 
oppressively,  or  who  violates  any  express  pro- 
vision of  this  agreement." 

The  Protocol  which  this  amended,  drawn  up 
in  19  io,1  provided  in  principle  for  the  elimi- 
nation of  all  strikes  for  any  cause  and  for  a 

1  See  "Law  and  Order  in  Industry,"  Appendix  A. 


Hiring  and  Firing  63 

system  of  review  of  discharges  before  boards 
of  grievances,  chief  clerks,  committees  on  im- 
mediate action,  or  boards  of  arbitration.1 
This  effort  at  constitutionalizing  the  industry, 
by  the  use  of  juridical  machinery,  broke  down 
because  the  employers  insisted  that  imperma- 
nency  of  tenure  was  necessary  for  the  mainte- 
nance of  discipline  and  efficiency,  and  the  em- 
ployees insisted  upon  their  time-honored  right 
to  strike  at  any  time.  It  is  the  writer's  experi- 
ence that  there  must  be  yielding  upon  both  sides 
before  a  sound  working  basis  can  be  established. 
"Analogy  is  a  necessary  mode  of  all  our 
thinking,"  says  Knowlson,2  "and  genius  is 
often  another  name  for  the  power  to  see  simi- 
larities in  phenomena,  natural  or  mental,  that 
have  hitherto  been  undetected."  "An  intuitive 
perception  of  the  similarity  in  dissimilars," 
making  the  thinker  "master  of  metaphor," 
Havelock  Ellis  says,  "is  the  mark  of  genius."  3 
"Thus  it  comes  about,"  says  he,   "that  the 

1  See  "Law  and  Order  in  Industry." 

2T.  Sharper  Knowlson:     "Originality,"  p.  no. 

3  "Impressions  and  Comments,"  pp.  80-81. 


64  American  Labor  Policy 

thinkers  who  survive  are  the  thinkers  who 
wrote  well  and  are  most  nearly  poets."  It  is 
no  original  discovery  of  the  writer  to  find  a 
very  close  analogy  between  elements  in  the 
international  legal  situation  and  elements  in 
the  industrial  legal  situation.  It  is  true  that 
Germany  relied  upon  her  army  and  England 
relied  upon  her  navy  for  the  enforcement  of 
international  law,  and  it  is  true  also  that  the 
conception  of  international  law  entertained  by 
Germany  was  in  conflict  with  the  conception  of 
international  law  entertained  by  England  and 
by  the  United  States.  The  latter  two  coun- 
tries are  committed  to  the  first  of  the  two 
schools  of  philosophical  thinkers  or  historians 
distinguished  by  Viscount  Bryce.  The  be- 
lievers in  the  English  common  law  lay  stress 
on  "the  power  of  Reason  and  of  those 
higher  and  gentler  altruistic  emotions  which 
the  development  of  Reason  as  the  guide  of  life 
tends  to  evoke  and  foster"  and  find  in  these 
tendencies  "the  chief  sources  of  human  prog- 
ress in  the  past,  and  expects  from  them  its  fur- 


Hiring  and  Firing  65 

ther  progress  in  the  future."  This  philosophy 
regards  man  "as  capable  of  a  continual  ad- 
vance through  the  increasing  influence  of  rea- 
son and  sympathy,"  and  relies  upon  "the  ideas 
of  Justice  and  Right  as  the  chief  factors  in  the 
amelioration  of  society."  The  opposite  school 
insists  that  social  order  "can  be  secured  only 
by  Force  and  Right  itself  is  created  only  by 
force"  and  this  school  of  philosophy  is  "asso- 
ciated with  the  less  rational  elements  in  man — 
with  passion  and  the  self-regarding  impulses 
which  naturally  attain  their  ends  by  physical 
violence."  1  The  analogy  of  industrial  rela- 
tions to  international  relations  is  perfect  in 
this:  that  whether  it  be  the  employers'  group 
or  the  workers'  group,  the  rights  of  either,  like 
the  rights  of  a  nation,  are  presently  enforceable 
only  by  the  use  of  force — not  organized  force 
resultant  from  the  deliberations  of  the  com- 
munity and  arrived  at  through  juridical  and 
parliamentary  process,   but  force  within  the 

1  "War    and    Human    Progress."    The    Atlantic    Monthly, 
September,  1916,  pp.  301-2. 


66  American  Labor  Policy 

control  of  one  or  the  other  party  to  the  contro- 
versy. The  Fourth  of  July  address  of  the 
President,  containing  a  principle  accepted  now 
by  all  the  international  belligerents,  embraced 
the  following:  "The  destruction  of  every  ar- 
bitrary power  anywhere  that  can  separately, 
secretly,  and  of  its  single  choice  disturb  the 
peace  of  the  world ;  or,  if  it  cannot  be  presently 
destroyed,  at  the  least  its  reduction  to  virtual 
impotence."  And  the  third  principle  contains 
the  statement :  "The  consent  of  all  nations  to 
be  governed  in  their  conduct  toward  each  other 
by  the  same  principles  of  honor  and  of  respect 
for  the  common  law  of  civilized  society  that 
govern  the  individual  citizens  of  all  modern 
States  in  their  relations  with  one  another;  to 
the  end  that  all  promises  and  covenants  may 
be  sacredly  observed,  no  private  plots  or  con- 
spiracies hatched,  no  selfish  injuries  wrought 
with  impunity,  and  a  mutual  trust  established 
upon  the  handsome  foundation  of  a  mutual  re- 
spect for  right."  Change  the  word  "nations" 
to  "groups,"  and  we  have  principles  equally 


Hiring  and  Firing  67 

applicable  to  the  industrial  situation — put  in 
the  admirable  diction  of  the  President. 

Why  must  any  group  in  the  community  be 
free  to  strike  "at  any  time  and  for  any  or  no 
reason"?  The  writer  was  present  as  Special 
Counsel  to  the  Public  Service  Commission  in 
19 17  when  this  question  was  publicly  discussed. 
The  answer  was  very  frankly  given  by  one  of 
the  leaders  of  labor.  He  said :  "I  want  to  be 
fair  and  I  will  say  that  I  do  not  think  it  is  a 
good  idea  to  tell  the  other  fellow  what  you  are 
going  to  do,  and  to  give  them  thirty  days,  more 
or  less,  to  make  preparation  to  get  ready  to 
fight  you."  '  And  the  experienced  chairman 
of  a  board  of  arbitration  said:  "Industrial 
war  has  its  strategy  of  time  and  position  like 
military  war,  and  the  objection  of  the  labor 
leader  to  the  Canadian  disputes  act  is  that  it 
gives  an  important  strategic  advantage  to  the 
employer."  2     It  is  worth  following  his  reason- 

1  Minutes  of  Hearing  before  the  Commission,  February  9, 
1917,  p.  197. 

2  J.  E.  Williams,  discussing  Canadian  Industrial  Disputes  Act 
— The  Survey,  March  31,   19 17,  p.  755.    Mr.  Williams  died 


68  American  Labor  Policy 

ing  further:  "To  rouse  the  enthusiasm  of  a 
large  body  of  men  to  the  striking  point  often 
requires  a  great  deal  of  stimulation  and  effort, 
and  it  requires  also,  to  be  effective,  that  the 
accumulated  dynamite  be  exploded  at  the  psy- 
chological moment.  If  after  working  up  the 
fighting  spirit  to  high  tension,  the  labor  leader 
be  required  to  keep  it  there  during  a  period 
of  investigation,  he  would  find  his  task  not  only 
more  difficult  but  in  some  cases  impossible." 
Now,  of  course,  military  strategy  is  a  game  at 
which  two  can  play,  and  advocacy  of  the  right 
to  strike  at  any  time  without  notice  is  clear 
warning  to  the  employer  who  does  not  want  to 
deal  with  the  union  that  the  blow  may  fall  at 
any  moment.  Preparedness,  then,  for  such  an 
employer  results  in  the  military  strategy  of 
keeping  the  union  from  getting  a  foothold. 
Detectives  are  employed  who  keep  the  em- 
ployer well  informed  when  the  union  is  gaining 

while  these  lines  were  being  penned.  He  was  one  of  the  wisest 
conciliators  of  our  day  and  generation  (and  his  experience 
with  labor  leaders  as  well  as  employers  justifies  our  confidence 
in  him  as  it  did  theirs). 


Hiring  and  Firing  69 

ground  and  who  are  joining  the  union.  These 
are  promptly  eliminated  and  thus  is  anticipated 
the  adversaries'  attack.  The  union  then  coun- 
ters upon  the  employer  with  charges  of  dis- 
crimination against  the  union  and  discharging 
men  for  union  activity.  This,  as  the  writer 
learned  from  his  investigations  at  the  time,  is 
the  story  of  the  street  car  strike  of  1916.  The 
union  sought  to  get  a  foothold;  the  company 
discharged  the  men  whom  it  found  joining  the 
union ;  the  union  struck  to  reinstate  these  men. 
The  strike  spread  until  it  came  near  involving 
the  entire  city  in  a  general  strike.  But  in  the 
ultimate  outcome  the  company  justified  itself 
by  the  insistence  upon  the  part  of  union  leaders 
of  absolute  freedom  to  apply  military  strategy 
to  the  situation.  Our  analogy,  therefore,  is 
complete.  We  are  dealing  with  a  situation  as 
ready  for  war  as  was  the  European  situation 
prior  to  August  4th,  1914.  The  President * 
clearly  foresees  the  conditions  which  must  be 
brought  about  if  a  like  international  crisis  is 

1  Address  to  the  Senate,  January  22,  1917. 


yo  American  Labor  Policy 

not  again  to  be  repeated.  "Mere  terms  of 
peace  between  the  belligerents  will  not  satisfy 
even  the  belligerents  themselves.  Mere  agree- 
ments may  not  make  peace  secure.  It  will  be 
absolutely  necessary  that  a  force  be  created  as 
a  guarantor  of  the  permanency  of  the  settle- 
ment, so  much  greater  than  the  force  of  any 
nation  now  engaged  or  any  alliance  hitherto 
formed  or  projected,  that  no  nation,  no  prob- 
able combination  of  nations,  could  face  or  with- 
stand it.  If  the  peace  presently  to  be  made 
is  to  endure,  it  must  be  a  peace  made  secure 
by  the  organized  major  force  of  mankind." 
This  is  the  hope,  the  inspiring  hope  of  the  peo- 
ples of  the  world — international  law  not  rest- 
ing upon  mere  agreement  or  understanding, 
but  backed  by  an  organized  force  supported 
by  the  common  sense  of  mankind.  How  this 
force  shall  be  applied — whether  economic  or 
military — is  the  question  of  the  hour. 

Coming  back  to  the  subject  of  freedom  of 
industrial  contract,  we  discern  certain  legal 
corollaries.     For  example,  the  attempt  of  em- 


Hiring  and  Firing  71 

plovers  to  counter  military  strategy  against 
military  strategy  is  found  in  the  discharge  of 
men  belonging  to  the  union.  The  union's 
counter-attack  lies  in  securing  legislation  pre- 
cluding discharge  of  an  employee  because  of 
membership  in  a  labor  organization.  But  the 
legal  right  to  leave  employment  at  any  moment 
and  for  any  or  no  reason  rests,  as  every  lawyer 
knows,  upon  the  relationship  "at  will"  of  the 
hiring.  And  since  the  employee  is  free  to  go 
at  any  time  he  pleases,  either  singly  or  en 
masse,  the  United  States  Supreme  Court  finds 
it  impossible  to  accept  the  doctrine  that  the 
legislature  may  constitutionally  prevent  the 
employer  from  discharging  a  man  because  he 
joins  a  union.  Says  Judge  Harlan  in  the 
Adair  case:  ■  "The  right  of  a  person  to  sell 
his  labor  upon  such  terms  as  he  deems  proper 
is,  in  its  essence,  the  same  as  the  right  of  the 
purchaser  of  labor  to  prescribe  the  conditions 
upon  which  he  will  accept  such  labor  from  the 
person  offering  to  sell  it.     So  the  right  of  the 

1 208  u.  S.  161. 


JZ  American  Labor  Policy 

employee  to  quit  the  service  of  the  employer, 
for  whatever  reason,  is  the  same  as  the  right  of 
the  employer,  for  whatever  reason,  to  dispense 
with  the  services  of  such  employee.  It  was  the 
legal  right  of  the  defendant,  Adair, — however 
unwise  such  a  course  might  have  been, — to 
discharge  Coppage  [the  employee  in  the  case] 
because  of  his  being  a  member  of  a  labor  or- 
ganization, as  it  was  the  legal  right  of  Coppage, 
if  he  saw  fit  to  do  so, — however  unwise  such  a 
course  on  his  Dart  might  have  been, — to  quit 
the  service  in  which  he  was  engaged,  because 
the  defendant  employed  some  persons  who 
were  not  members  of  a  labor  organization.  In 
all  such  particulars  the  employer  and  the  em- 
ployee have  equality  of  right,  and  any  legis- 
lation that  disturbs  that  equality  is  an  arbitrary 
interference  with  the  liberty  of  contract  which 
no  government  can  legally  justify  in  a  free 
land."  l  And  in  support  of  his  contention  be- 
fore the  Public  Service  Commission  that  the 
free  right  to  quit  work  over  against  the  free 

1  Pp.  174-175.    Italics  ours. 


Hiring  and  Firing  73 

right  to  discharge  secures  justice  for  the 
worker,  Mr.  Gompers  said:  "I  shall  not  ex- 
press dissent  from  that  conception  of  right 
[Judge  Harlan's],  but  willing  to  concede  that 
right  to  employers,  I  insist  upon  the  right  of 
workers  to  leave  their  employment  at  will,  for 
any  good  reason,  or  for  no  reason  at  all."  * 
But  in  the  Adair  case  Mr.  Justice  Harlan  said : 
"Of  course,  if  the  parties  by  contract  fixed  the 
period  of  service,  and  prescribed  the  conditions 
upon  which  the  contract  may  be  terminated, 
such  contract  would  control  the  rights  of  the 
parties  as  between  themselves,  and  for  any  vio- 
lation of  those  provisions  the  party  wronged 
would  have  his  appropriate  civil  action."  2  It 
would  seem,  therefore,  to  be  unquestionably 
sound — applying  the  international  analogy  fur- 
ther— that  the  present  legal  status  must  be 
changed,  that  each  group  must  give  up  some- 
thing of  its  unrestrained  right  to  wield  power 
and  that  there  must  be  a  "reign  of  law,  based 

1  Minutes  of  Hearing  before  the  Commission,  February  7, 
1917,  p.  70. 

2  208  U.  S.  161,  at  p.  175. 


74  American  Labor  Policy 

upon  the  consent  of  the  governed  and  sustained 
by  the  organized  opinion  of  mankind."  In  the 
emergence  of  the  new  legal  conception,  there- 
fore, the  first  step  must  be  taken  in  the  direc- 
tion of  modifying  the  tenure  of  employment. 
The  uncertainty  and  danger  of  discharge  must 
be  removed,  the  employee  must  be  satisfied  that 
he  will  get  a  fair  hearing  and  redress  for  his 
legitimate  grievances.  This  is  vital  to  the 
three  parties,  the  employee,  the  employer  and 
the  community.  As  we  have  seen,  it  affects 
the  public  service,  the  public  health,  the  public 
order.  The  present  situation  results  in  vio- 
lence, in  economic  waste,  and  in  the  destruction 
of  industrial  morale.  It  must  be  changed. 
How  shall  it  be  changed  ? 

INDIVIDUAL   AND   COLLECTIVE   BARGAINING 

The  Whitley  Plan '  is  based  fundamentally 
upon  the  principle  of  collective  bargaining; 

1  Report  of  the  Right  Honorable  J.  H.  Whitley,  M.P.,  Chair- 
man of  the  Sub-Committee  on  Relations  between  Employers 
and  Employed  of  the  Commission  on  Industrial  Unrest.  In- 
terim Report.    London,  1917. 


Individual  and  Collective  Bargaining     75 

that  each  trade  should  have  a  constitution,  that 
all  of  the  employers  should  be  organized  in  one 
organization  and  all  of  the  employees  organ- 
ized in  another,  and  that  all  of  the  industrial 
organizations  should  finally  be  represented  in  a 
national  industrial  council  representative  of  the 
trades  unions  and  of  the  employers'  associa- 
tions in  the  industry.  Without  recognizing 
the  union  and  dealing  with  the  union,  this  kind 
of  an  organization  of  industry  is  impossible. 
The  National  War  Labor  Board  (United 
States)  adopted  as  one  of  the  principles  and 
policies  governing  relations  between  workers 
and  employers  in  war  industries  for  the  dura- 
tion of  the  war  the  following:  aThe  right  of 
workers  to  organize  in  trade-unions  and  to  bar- 
gain collectively  through  chosen  representatives 
is  recognized  and  affirmed.  This  right  shall 
not  be  denied,  abridged,  or  interfered  with  by 
the  employers  in  any  manner  whatsoever." 
And,  contrary  to  the  decision  of  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court  in  the  Adair  and  Cop- 
page  case,  it  said  that  "Employers  should  not 


j6  American  Labor  Policy 

discharge  workers  for  membership  in  trade- 
unions,  nor  for  legitimate  trade-union  activi- 
ties." As  principles,  these  two  statements  are 
as  sound  as  the  principle  that  international 
treaties  shall  be  observed.  Yet  Belgium  was 
invaded,  and  the  world  went  to  war  to  establish 
the  sanctity  of  international  treaties.  Is  it 
necessary  to  go  to  war  to  establish  the  sanctity 
of  industrial  principles?  If  the  right  to  strike 
at  any  time  for  any  or  no  reason  whatever  is 
to  be  maintained  because  of  its  value  in  the 
philosophy  of  military  strategy,  may  not  em- 
ployers very  properly  ask :  "Isn't  this  a  game 
of  'heads  you  win  and  tails  we  lose'?"  And 
again,  may  they  not  ask:  "If  we  guarantee 
permanence  of  employment  and  continuity  of 
the  job,  how  shall  we  be  assured  that  the  con- 
tract not  to  strike  will  be  observed?" 

Any  one  at  all  familiar  with  the  root  causes 
of  industrial  conflict,  any  one  who  is  as  close  to 
the  point  of  friction  as  the  student  of  the  Bal- 
kans was  to  the  point  of  friction  in  the  inter- 
national situation,  will  admit  that  herein  lies 


Individual  and  Collective  Bargaining     77 

the  epidemic  germ  of  industrial  war,  that  it 
must  be  isolated  and  microscopically  examined 
in  order  that  its  malignant  properties  may  be 
offset  with  some  new  virus  of  anti-toxic  value. 
Isolating  the  germ,  then,  what  do  we  discern? 
First  of  all,  that  the  individual  contract  be- 
tween employer  and  employee  protects  neither 
and  results  in  industrial  war  sooner  or  later. 
It  creates  the  pathological  condition  of  im- 
permanency  of  employment.  When  the  labor 
supply  is  over  much,  the  balance  of  power 
swings  to  the  employer.  When  there  is  a 
shortage  of  labor,  the  balance  of  power  swings 
to  the  employee.  When  the  first  condition  ex- 
ists, we  have  all  the  elements  that  make  for  an 
imperial  employer's  autocracy.  When  the  sec- 
ond condition  exists,  we  have  all  of  the  ele- 
ments that  go  to  make  for  an  imperial  work- 
er's autocracy.1     The  Russian  experience  has 

1  The  effect  of  transference  of  power  from  the  employers' 
group  to  the  employees'  group  upon  attempts  at  "mutual  gov- 
ernment" of  industry  and  the  effect  of  a  like  transference  of 
power  back  again  from  the  employees'  group  to  the  employers' 
group  is  disclosed  in  a  very  excellent  study  of  "Collective  Bar- 
gaining in  the  Lithographic   Industry"  by  H.   E.  Hoagland. 


y%  American  Labor  Policy 

already  taught  us  that  the  transference  of  un- 
restrained imperial  power  from  the  monarch 
to  the  proletariat  makes  for  just  as  much  vio- 
lation of  human  liberty  and  freedom  as  if  the 
power  resides  in  a  czar  or  kaiser.  Lenine  and 
Trotzky  are  imperialistic  anti-social  bodies, 
whether  covered  with  the  jewels  of  the  Prus- 
sian crown,  or  wearing  only  tatters  and  rags. 
Still  both  employer  and  employee  ask: 
"How  else  can  we  be  safeguarded?"  and  we 
must  pay  just  as  much  respect  to  this  legitimate 
question  as  we  pay  to  England's  insistence  that 
she  remain  the  paramount  naval  power  of  the 
world.  Taking  up  first  the  employer's  side,  it 
may  be  taken  for  granted  that  the  existence  of 
a  strong  employers'  association  of  which  he  is 
a  member  will  make  for  a  guarantee  to  the 
workers  of  the  performance  of  any  collective 
agreement  into  which  he  or  his  association 
may  enter.  Obviously,  on  the  other  hand  an 
individual  contract  with  an  employee,  even  for 

(Columbia    University    Studies    in    Political    Science,    Vol. 
LXXIV,  No.  3.) 


Individual  and  Collective  Bargaining     79 

a  definite  term  or  period,  insures  no  guarantee 
of  its  performance  upon  the  part  of  the  worker. 
He  has  none  of  the  financial  responsibility  of 
his  employer,  and  if  he  wanders  off  there  is  no 
way  of  collecting  damages.  Moreover,  by 
what  process  can  you  make  him  sing  who  does 
not  wish  to  sing?  Or  make  him  drink  who 
does  not  wish  to  drink?  Or  make  him  work 
who  does  not  wish  to  work?  Herein,  for  the 
employer,  lies  the  value  of  collective  bargain- 
ing. The  organized  trades  union  is  the  collec- 
tive sentiment  of  the  working  community, 
which  can  be  welded  into  an  effective  guaran- 
tee of  the  faithful  performance  of  obligations. 
The  experience  of  Great  Britain  has  been  re- 
peatedly reviewed.  In  the  report  of  the  Brit- 
ish Industrial  Council  on  its  "Enquiry  into 
Industrial  Agreements"  in  191 3,  the  Council 
said:  "The  desirability  of  maintaining  the 
principle  of  collective  bargaining — which  has 
become  so  important  a  constituent  in  the  indus- 
trial life  of  this  country — cannot  be  called  into 
question,  and  we  regard  it  as  axiomatic  that 


80  American  Labor  Policy 

nothing  should  be  done  that  would  lead  to  the 
abandonment  of  a  method  of  adjusting  the  re- 
lationships between  employers  and  workpeo- 
ple which  has  proved  so  mutually  advantageous 
throughout  most  of  the  trades  of  the  country." 
In  the  introduction  of  Sir  George  Askwith  to 
the  "Report  on  Collective  Agreements  between 
Employers  and  Workpeople  in  the  United 
Kingdom"  made  in  1910,  he  said:  "The  wide 
prevalence  of  these  arrangements  in  our  most 
important  industries  must  have  an  important 
influence  on  industrial  enterprise,  for  when 
the  level  of  wages,  the  length  of  the  working 
day,  and  other  principal  conditions  of  employ- 
ment are  regulated,  for  specified  periods  of 
greater  or  less  duration,  by  clearly  defined 
Agreements,  the  employers  concerned  must  be 
enabled  to  calculate  with  precision  that  part  of 
the  cost  of  production  which  will  be  repre- 
sented by  labour;  further,  when  these  Agree- 
ments bind  the  whole  or  a  very  large  propor- 
tion of  the  firms  engaged  in  a  given  trade,  the 
danger  of  undercutting  by  rivals  who  find  it 


Individual  and  Collective  Bargaining     81 

possible  to  obtain  labour  at  a  lower  price  is  ma- 
terially reduced."  And  in  the  more  recent  re- 
port of  the  Commission  of  Inquiry  into  Indus- 
trial Unrest,1  they  say:  "The  best  security 
for  industrial  peace  is  organization  of  both 
employers  and  employed.  If  the  men  are 
badly  organized  the  result  is  unauthorized  local 
strikes ;  if  the  employers  are  not  strongly  fed- 
erated, you  have  a  minority  who  refuse  to  pay 
the  district  rate."  And  in  the  report  of  Presi- 
dent Wilson's  Mediation  Commission,  the  sec- 
ond principle  stated  is:  Some  form  of  col- 
lective relationship  between  management  and 
men  is  indispensable.2  The  common  ground 
for  a  meeting  of  minds,  therefore,  is  collective 
bargaining.  Here  military  strategy  may  be 
given  up  in  exchange  for  treaty  obligations. 
Change  of  tenure  of  employment,  qualification 
of  the  right  to  strike  and  qualification  of  the 
right  to  discharge — the  result  and  outcome  of 
a  free,  open,  democratic  meeting  of  minds. 

1  Bulletin  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics  No.  237, 
p.  100. 

2  See  New  York  Evening  Post,  February  1 1,  1918. 


82  American  Labor  Policy 

Shall  we  give  to  this  process  of  group  contract- 
ing the  same  cordial  support  which  the  com- 
mon law  now  extends  to  individual  contract- 
ing? Marked  differences  exist  between  the 
English  trade  union  situation  and  that  of  our 
own  country.1  First  of  all,  British  labor  has 
a  long  political  history.  Since  the  sixties  of 
the  last  century  it  has  maintained  special  in- 
tellectual affiliations  with  the  non-manual 
workers.  Labor  is  far  less  highly  organized  in 
America  and  "Industrial  capital  is  far  more 
highly  organized  and  far  more  hostile  to  labor 
than  it  is  in  England."  2  Why  is  organized 
American  capital  opposed  to  organized  Ameri- 
can labor?  The  answer  is  that  both  sides  are 
still  in  the  stage  of  military  strategy,  and  both 
sides  must  be  won  over  to  the  stage  of  indus- 
trial law.  They  will  not  be  won  over  any  more 
quickly  than  the  nations  of  the  world  will  be 
won  over  to  a  League  of  Nations  unless  their 

1  See  address  of  Harold  J.  Laski  on  War  Labor  Policies  and 
Reconstruction,  session  of  the  Academy  of  Political  Science, 
December,  1918. 

2  Report  of  Harold  J.  Laski's  address  in  New  York  Journal 
of  Commerce,  December  10,  1918. 


Individual  and  Collective  Bargaining     83 

assent  is  obtained  to  a  constructive  program  in 
which  they  are  secured.  The  nations  of  the 
world  could  not  have  been  won  over  to  such  a 
constructive  program  before  the  great  world 
war.  The  world  was  not  yet  ready.  It  is  the 
bitter  lessons  of  the  war  which  made  a  general 
public  sentiment  demanding  that  international 
war  be  subordinated  to  international  law. 
Must  we  go  through  the  same  painful  experi- 
ences before  we  can  secure  that  combination  of 
feeling  and  judgment  which  is  prerequisite  to 
the  establishment  of  industrial  law?  Perhaps 
the  analogy  of  the  international  situation  will 
help  us  further.  We  had  all  assumed  that  the 
making  of  a  collective  bargain  between  Ger- 
many and  Belgium  was  enough.  It  would  be 
preserved  through  the  force  of  its  own  inherent 
moral  soundness  and  an  enlightened  interna- 
tional public  opinion.  How  futile  that  phi- 
losophy was  we  now  know.  In  like  fashion 
some  experience  with  collective  bargaining 
under  the  administration  of  the  War  Labor 
Board  teaches  us  the  same  lesson.     We  have 


84  American  Labor  Policy 

had  the  recent  decrees  of  the  War  Labor  Board 
flouted  on  both  sides,  and  only  the  organized 
power  of  the  community  vested  in  the  Presi- 
dent under  law  enabled  him  to  exercise  the 
war  power,  in  the  one  instance  (the  Smith  & 
Wesson  plant)  by  taking  over  the  plant  and 
operating  it  as  a  governmental  agency,  and  in 
the  other  (the  Bridgeport  munition  workers) 
by  informing  the  men  that  if  they  refused  to 
abide  by  the  award  of  the  National  War  Labor 
Board  and  did  not  return  to  work,  they  would 
"be  barred  from  employment  in  any  war  indus- 
try in  the  community  in  which  the  strike  occurs 
for  a  period  of  one  year"  and  furthermore  that 
during  that  time  the  United  States  Employ- 
ment Service  would  decline  to  obtain  employ- 
ment for  them  in  any  war  industry  elsewhere 
in  the  United  States,  as  well  as  under  the  War 
and  Navy  Departments,  the  Shipping  Board, 
the  Railroad  Administration,  and  all  other 
government  agencies,  and  "the  draft  boards 
will  be  instructed  to  reject  any  claim  of  exemp- 
tion based  on  your  alleged  usefulness  on  war 


Individual  and  Collective  Bargaining     85 

production."  1  Similarly,  Dr.  William  Z.  Rip- 
ley in  the  case  of  Rosenwasser  Brothers  found 
the  facts  to  be  these :  An  agreement  had  been 
reached  by  the  workers'  representatives  for 
navy  shoes.  The  vampers  for  some  reason  re- 
pudiated the  agreement  and  walked  out.  The 
representative  of  the  National  War  Labor 
Board  said:  "By  this  action  they  have  for- 
feited their  positions,  not  only  in  this  factory 
but  are  liable  to  be  excluded  from  Government 
employment  during  the  rest  of  the  war.  The 
Administration  of  Labor  Standards  stands  for 
fair  dealing  and  a  full  recognition  of  the  work- 
ers' rights,  but  it  likewise  insists  upon  effi- 
ciency, discipline  and  good  faith.  This  strike 
was  a  breach  of  the  Government's  War  Policy 
and  also  of  straightforward  business  dealing 
between  capital  and  labor.  It  will  not  be  toler- 
ated so  far  as  any  penalty  which  this  office  can 
impose  is  concerned."  These  experiences  are 
in  accord  with  the  writer's  experience  in  the 

1  Monthly  Labor  Review,  Bureau  of  Labor  Statistics,  U.  S. 
Dept.  of  Labor,  October,  1918,  Vol.  VII,  No.  4,  "Awards  and 
Decisions  of  the  National  War  Labor  Board." 


86  American  Labor  Policy 

street  car  strike  of  19 16  and  the  Protocol  ex- 
periences in  the  garment  industries.1  After 
the  Public  Service  Commission  and  the  Mayor 
had  settled  the  street  car  strike  upon  terms  sat- 
isfactory to  both  parties,  recognizing  clearly 
the  right  of  men  to  belong  to  a  union,  on  both 
sides  the  agreement  was  broken  2  and  the  Pub- 
lic Service  Commission  and  the  Mayor,  who 
had  given  their  guarantee  that  the  agreement 
would  be  enforced,  found  themselves  without 
legal  power  to  do  anything.  It  became  per- 
fectly clear  that  the  absence  of  legal  power  to 
enforce  the  observance  of  agreements  has  pre- 
cisely the  same  result  in  industrial  relations  as 
it  has  in  international  treaties.  If  the  philoso- 
phy of  force  be  actuating  either  of  the  contend- 
ing parties,  or,  for  that  matter,  be  actuating 
both  of  them,  military  strategy  will  lead  to 
the  striking  of  the  first  blow  when  the  adver- 
sary is  not  looking  for  it. 

As  in  international  relations  so  in  industrial 

1  See  "Law  and  Order  in  Industry." 

2  This  does  not  include  the  Third  Avenue  Railway  Company. 


Individual  and  Collective  Bargaining     87 

relations  we  have  heretofore  depended  upon 
the  parties  to  the  treaty  to  see  to  its  enforce- 
ment and,  therefore,  to  the  extent  that  the  par- 
ties were  militarily  prepared,  treaties  were  or 
were  not  enforceable.  The  strike,  the  lockout 
and  discharge  are  the  army  and  navy  of  the 
contracting  powers — the  sole  means  now  avail- 
able to  secure  observance  of  obligations.  This 
is  the  lesson  of  the  street  car  strike,  of  the  gar- 
ment industry,  of  many  others.1 

Until  we  put  the  parties  upon  a  firmer  basis, 
we  might  just  as  well  ask  England  to  give  up 
her  naval  fleet  as  ask  the  trades  unions  to  give 
up  their  right  to  strike.  And  with  equal  truth, 
we  might  as  well  ask  employers  to  give  up  their 
right  to  prepare  to  meet  the  forces  they  regard 
as  their  foes.  (If  you  can't  meet  the  navy 
upon  terms  of  equality,  you  can  use  the  sub- 
marine, can't  you?)  So  long  as  the  game  is 
one  of  military  strategy,  you  must  keep  your 
powder   dry   and  watch   your   own   and  the 

1  See  "Collective  Bargaining  in  the  Lithographic  Industry," 
by  H.  E.  Hoagland.  Columbia  University  Studies  in  Political 
Science,  Vol.  LXXIV,  No.  3. 


88  American  Labor  Policy 

enemy's  alignment.  That  is  why  the  safety  of 
the  entire  industrial  structure  rests  to-day,  as 
did  the  world's  peace,  upon  the  ''balance  of 
power."  In  the  industrial  situation,  however, 
the  "balance  of  power"  is  shifting  uneasily  to 
the  greater  majority — a  majority  but  recently 
graduated  from  a  special  and  highly  dramatic 
course  in  democracy. 

But,  no  league  of  nations  in  existence,  what 
other  way  was  there  of  redressing  the  wrong 
to  Belgium  except  to  go  to  war?  In  the  day 
of  individual  retributive  justice,  when  the  pio- 
neer had  to  meet  the  savage's  knife,  the  repres- 
sive action  required  to  secure  the  preservation 
of  liberty  came  not  from  the  community,  but 
from  a  part  of  it, — the  individual-about-to-be- 
injured.  He  himself  was  the  administrator  of 
justice.  He  personally  enforced  a  decent  re- 
spect for  human  life.  He  was  judge,  jury  and 
sheriff,  all  in  one.  Justice  upon  the  minute  as 
and  when  necessary  was  meted  out  by  him. 
There  was  none  of  the  law's  delays.  He  was 
the  law.     In  the  next  state  of  civilization,  when 


Individual  and  Collective  Bargaining     89 

it  was  no  longer  protection  of  the  civilized  man 
from  the  savage  but  protection  of  the  civilized 
man  from  his  brother,  justice  was  adminis- 
tered upon  the  plane  of  the  duel.  Celerity  of 
aim  and  swiftness  of  arm  constituted  the  jurid- 
ical test.  Later,  in  the  day  of  the  Western 
frontier,  we  have  the  community  organizing 
spasmodically  to  repress  violence.  It  is  the 
mass  effort  to  repress  savage  instincts.  So 
with  nations.  The  predatory  nation  attempts 
to  take  its  neighbor's  territory  but  meets  with 
the  same  defense  as  the  pioneer  set  up  against 
the  savage.  Human  rights  are  upheld  by  the 
about-to-be-injured  nation,  as  judge,  jury  and 
sheriff  all  in  one.  Sometimes,  as  in  the  case  of 
Belgium  and  Northern  France,  the  predatory 
savage  is  too  swift  or  the  attacked  innocent  too 
unprepared.  For  the  time  being  justice  fails 
and  human  rights  are  outraged.  But  the 
moral  sense  of  a  larger  community  is  outraged. 
The  very  success  of  the  predatory  nation 
arouses  something  fine  and  big  in  others  and 
there  comes  a  new  repressive  force.     A  moral 


90  American  Labor  Policy 

basis  is  formed  upon  which  the  Allies,  organ- 
izing under  many  flags,  but  with  a  single  pur- 
pose, the  securing  of  justice  and  the  enforce- 
ment of  international  law, — repress  the  in- 
vader of  territory  and  the  destroyer  of  human 
rights  and  thereby  lay  the  foundation  for 
better  administration  of  international  law. 
Nevertheless,  until  some  kind  of  international 
organization  based  upon  international  law  is 
brought  into  existence,  we  are  still  left  upon 
the  plane  of  the  duel. 

In  like  fashion  the  invasion  of  human  rights 
through  autocratic  exercise  of  industrial  au- 
thority results  in  the  organization  of  some  kind 
of  repressive  force.  The  laborers  form 
unions.  These  fight  for  their  lives.  They 
fight  for  the  right  to  organize.  They  fight 
for  better  working  conditions.  They  repre- 
sent for  the  time  being  the  best  kind  of  an  or- 
ganization then  possible  of  formation  for  the 
improvement  of  the  conditions  of  working  peo- 
ple. They  become  a  kind  of  vigilance  commit- 
tee for  the  repression  of  outrages  upon  any  of 


Individual  and  Collective  Bargaining     91 

their  members.  They  fight  because  they  must 
fight.  And  when,  through  success  of  conflict, 
they  attain  power,  the  remainder  of  the  com- 
munity once  again  runs  the  risk  of  power  un- 
restrained by  law.  It  is  most  fortunate  for 
this  country  that  at  the  moment  the  present 
leaders  of  organized  labor  instinctively  recog- 
nize the  limits  to  which  they  should  use  their 
power.  By  the  exercise  of  sheer  personal  re- 
straint, they  have  applied  in  large  measure  the 
repression  the  community  itself  must  sooner  or 
later  inevitably  apply.  But  in  instances  where 
the  mass  power  has  passed  into  the  hands  of 
men  who  believe  with  Sorel  and  Trotzky  and 
Lenine,  success  merely  whets  the  appetite  for 
greater  power.  Collective  bargaining  with 
organizations  led  by  men  who  believe  in  the 
ultimate  overthrow  of  all  industry  and  the 
passing  of  power  to  the  proletariat  is  in  effect 
pacifism  dealing  with  autocracy,  delaying 
rather  than  disposing  of  the  conflict  that  must 
inevitably  come.  From  our  experiences  in  the 
administration  of   the   National  War   Labor 


92  American  Labor  Policy 

Board,  we  learn  that  even  at  a  time  when  the 
strongest  appeal  to  patriotism  can  be  made, 
there  must  be  back  of  the  agreement,  back  of 
the  law,  a  power  to  enforce  the  law. 

Here  again  we  find  instructive  analogy  in 
the  evolution  of  legal  procedure.  In  the  early 
days  of  Anglo-Saxon  justice,  there  was  no 
executive  power  to  enforce  the  law.  What 
seems  to  us  to  be  so  ordinary  and  so  simple  in 
the  administration  of  law  to-day  was  then  en- 
tirely lacking.  To-day  the  courts  compel  the 
attendance  of  parties ;  they  enforce  their  judg- 
ments, their  interlocutory  orders.  All  these 
things  are  done  under  the  ordinary  authority 
of  the  court,  as  matter  of  course.  Open  re- 
sistance to  judicial  orders  is  so  plainly  useless 
that  it  is  very  rarely  attempted,  and  any  one 
who  prefers  penalties  to  submission  is  regarded 
as  indicating  eccentricity  almost  amounting  to 
unsoundness  of  mind.1  Says  Sir  Frederick 
Pollock :     "But  this  reign  of  law  did  not  come 

1  Sir  Frederick  Pollock :    "Expansion  of  the  Common  Law," 
pp.  145-6. 


Individual  and  Collective  Bargaining     93 

by  nature;  it  has  been  slowly  and  laboriously 
won."  The  original  jurisdiction  was  purely 
voluntary,  derived  not  from  the  authority  of 
the  state,  but  "from  the  consent  of  the  parties." 
It  was  like  our  present  day  collective  bargain- 
ing— good  as  far  as  it  went.  "People  might 
come  to  the  court,"  says  Sir  Frederick  Pollock, 
"for  a  decision  if  they  agreed  to  do  so."  They 
were,  of  course,  in  honor  bound  to  accept  the 
result.  They  might  forfeit  the  pledges  which 
they  deposited  with  the  court,  but  there  was 
no  power  to  compel  their  obedience  any  more 
than  there  is  to-day  any  power  to  compel  obedi- 
ence to  the  decrees  of  a  tribunal  of  arbitration 
appointed  under  a  treaty.  In  more  recent 
times,  we  see  the  Central  American  Court  of 
Justice, — an  international  tribunal, — going  to 
pieces  because  it  lacks  method  for  the  enforce- 
ment of  its  decrees.  By  Article  XXV  of  the 
treaty  between  the  Central  American  republics 
it  was  provided:  "The  judgments  of  the 
Court  shall  be  communicated  to  the  five  Gov- 
ernments of  the  contracting  Republics.     The 


94  American  Labor  Policy 

interested  parties  solemnly  bind  themselves  to 
submit  to  said  judgments,  and  all  agree  to  lend 
all  moral  support  that  may  be  necessary  in 
order  that  they  may  be  properly  fulfilled, 
thereby  constituting  a  real  and  positive  guar- 
antee of  respect  for  this  Convention  and  for 
the  Central  American  Court  of  Justice."  This 
guarantee  turned  out  to  be  just  as  good  and  no 
better  than  the  guarantee  of  the  Public  Serv- 
ice Commission  and  the  Mayor  of  the  City  of 
New  York  of  the  observance  of  the  treaty  of 
peace  that  settled  the  first  street  car  strike  in 
1916.  On  March  17th,  1918,  the  Central 
American  Court  ceased  to  exist,  because  its  de- 
crees were  unenforceable.1     Let  us  hope  the 

1  Wicker,  Cyrus  F. :  "Nicaragua  and  the  United  States," 
Atlantic  Monthly,  Vol.  119,  1917,  pp.  682-685. 

"The  Central  American  Peace  Conference.  1907.  Treaties." 
(In  American  Journal  of  International  Law,  Vol.  2,  Supple- 
ment, pp.  219-265.) 

"Central  American  Court  of  Justice.  Regulations  and  Or- 
dinance of  Procedure."     (In  Same,  Vol.  8,  Supplement,  pp. 

179-213-) 

"Bryan-Chamorro  Treaty."  (In  Same,  Vol.  10,  Supplement, 
pp.  258-260.) 

"Central  American  Court  of  Justice.  Note  addressed  to  the 
governments    of    Costa   Rica,    El    Salvador,    Honduras   and 


Individual  and  Collective  Bargaining     95 

Council  of  Peace  at  Versailles  will  do  better. 
In  the  early  days  of  Anglo-Saxon  administra- 
tion *  the  only  way  by  which  you  could  bring  an 
unwilling  adversary  into  court  was  to  take  as 
security  something  belonging  to  him  and  hold 
it  until  he  would  attend  to  the  demand.  Prac- 
tically the  only  things  that  could  thus  be  taken 
without  personal  violence  were  cattle.  Thus 
arose  the  process  of  distress.  It  was  forbid- 
den to  distrain  until  right  had  been  formally 
demanded — in  Cnut's  time  to  the  extent  of 
three  summonings — and  refused.  Thus  grad- 
ually judicial  supervision  of  the  process  was 
secured.  Nevertheless,  if  taking  a  man's  cat- 
tle failed  to  make  him  appear  in  court,  the  only 
resource  left  "was  to  deny  the  law's  protection 
to  the  stiff-necked  man  who  would  not  come  to 
be  judged  by  law."  He  might  be  outlawed. 
This  was  enough  to  coerce  most  men  who  had 

Guatemala"  (respecting  the  refusal  of  Nicaragua  to  abide  by 
the  decision  in  the  case  of  Costa  Rica).  (In  Same,  Vol.  IX, 
Supplement,  pp.  3-13.) 

1  Sir  Frederick  Pollock :     "Expansion  of  the  Common  Law," 
pp.  145-6. 


96  American  Labor  Policy 

anything  to  lose  and  were  "not  strong  enough 
to  live  in  rebellion.  Nevertheless,  in  this  stage 
of  the  development  of  the  law,  no  right  could 
be  done  to  the  complainant  without  the  volun- 
tary submission  of  the  defendant.  'The  de- 
vice of  a  judgment  by  default,"  says  Pollock, 
"which  is  familiar  enough  to  us,  was  unknown, 
and  probably  would  not  have  been  understood." 
Even  after  you  got  your  final  judgment  you 
could  not  enforce  it  by  legal  process.  "The 
successful  party  had  to  see  to  gathering  the 
'fruits  of  judgment,'  as  we  say,  for  himself. 
In  case  of  continued  refusal  to  do  right  accord- 
ing to  the  sentence  of  the  court,  he  might  take 
the  law  into  his  own  hands,  in  fact  wage  war 
on  his  obstinate  opponent."  So  in  present  day 
industrial  situations  we  leave  the  parties  them- 
selves to  enforce  the  agreement;  they  take  the 
law  into  their  own  hands.  If  either  breaks  the 
agreement  the  other  is  obliged  to  wage  war  to 
secure  its  enforcement.  If  two  sides  break  the 
agreement,  as  the  writer  saw  them  do  in  the 
street  car  strike  of  1916,  we  have  a  bitter  duel, 


What  Is  the  Next  Step?  97 

the  whole  controversy  is  put  upon  the  plane  of 
military  strategy  and  the  community  stands  by 
helpless. 

Not  merely  a  change  in  the  state  of  conti- 
nuity of  employment,  therefore,  not  merely  a 
change  of  the  hiring  at  will,  not  merely  recog- 
nition of  the  union,  nor  collective  bargaining, 
nor  strengthening  the  power  of  organized 
labor  or  of  organized  employers,  but  something 
more  is  required. 

WHAT   IS   THE   NEXT   STEP? 

The  next  step,  of  course,  must  be  one  that 
will  secure  the  assent  of  all  three  parties — the 
Employers'  Group,  the  Workers'  Group  and 
the  Public.  The  great  war  is  over.  The  job 
of  industrial  control  can  be  carried  on  no  longer 
by  the  War  Labor  Board,  backed,  as  it  was,  by 
the  tremendous  war  powers  of  the  President.1 
We  are  back  again  to  the  stage  where  both  par- 

1  Already  the  jurisdiction  of  this  Board  is  challenged.  See 
New  York  press,  December  31,  1918,  refusal  of  street  railway 
companies  to  submit  to  War  Labor  Board. 


98  American  Labor  Policy 

ties  "come  into  court"  only  of  their  own  choice. 
Nor  are  we  likely  soon  to  get  legislation  that 
will  furnish  anything  of  the  effectiveness  of 
existing  legal  process.  Confidence  upon  the 
part  of  the  great  masses  of  men  in  judicial  ma- 
chinery and  in  the  personnel  of  our  judiciary  is 
not  now  great  enough  to  secure  their  free  as- 
sent to  the  submission  of  controversies  to  exist- 
ing tribunals.  Nor  shall  we  find  American 
employers  eager  to  embrace  organized  labor  or 
ready  to  sign  collective  agreements  en  masse. 
Is  there,  then,  no  way  out?  Must  we  go 
through  a  terrible  industrial  war  before  both 
sides,  worn  out,  suffering  the  ravages  and  pain 
of  a  struggle  that  if  it  comes,  is  certainly  des- 
tined to  be  violent,  shall  sit  down  at  a  council 
table  to  formulate  their  fourteen  points?  If 
we  could  be  confident  that  men  were  guided  by 
their  reason  and  not  by  their  emotions,  we 
might  look  out  hopefully  upon  the  future  of 
this  industrial  problem.  There  is  a  way  out, 
if  experience  can  be  made  to  count. 

Labor  must  be  organized  and  must  be  per- 


What  Is  the  Next  Step?  99 

mitted  to  join  in  the  management  of  industry. 

Employers  must  be  organized. 

The  determination  of  the  standards  and 
working  conditions  of  each  industry  must  come 
about,  if  not  through  war,  then  through  the 
action  of  groups  of  employers  and  workers 
legislating  for  their  industries  in  common  and 
free  parliamentary  action. 

There  must  be  opportunity  and  full  oppor- 
tunity for  the  redress  of  all  grievances. 

There  must  be  machinery  that  will  secure  to 
the  worker  a  reasonable  tenure  of  employment. 

Two  things  also  must  be  expressed  in  such 
a  compact — a  limitation  of  the  free  right  to 
discharge  and  a  limitation  of  the  free  right  to 
strike.  By  the  process  of  free  negotiation, 
these  two  rights  in  the  past  have  been  balanced. 
It  can  be  done  again.  But  collective  bargain- 
ing between  two  powers  is  like  treaty  making 
between  warring  nations.  There  must  be  es- 
tablished, as  the  President  said  there  must  be 
established  in  international  relations,  "an  or- 
ganization of  peace  which  shall  make  it  certain 


ioo  American  Labor  Policy 

that  the  combined  power  of  [a]  free  [nations] 
[people]  will  check  every  invasion  of  right  and 
serve  to  make  peace  and  justice  the  more  se- 
cure by  affording  a  definite  tribunal  of  opin- 
ion to  which  all  must  submit  and  by  which 
every  international  readjustment  that  cannot 
be  amicably  agreed  upon  by  the  peoples  di- 
rectly concerned  shall  be  sanctioned."  Or,  put 
in  his  single  sentence:  "What  we  seek  is  the 
reign  of  law,  based  upon  the  consent  of  the 
governed  and  sustained  by  the  organized  opin- 
ion of  mankind." 

Here  we  must  pause  to  consider  a  very  im- 
portant factor.  If  we  turn  back  a  few  pages 
we  shall  be  reminded  that  bargains  or  con- 
tracts with  groups  of  the  Sorel-Lenine-Trotzky 
variety  are  not  undertakings  in  free  govern- 
ment, but  are  means,  instead,  for  extending 
and  augmenting  the  power  of  a  group  deter- 
mined to  reign  over  all — in  brief,  the  contract 
is  a  mere  stepping-stone  to  imperial  power. 
Why,  then,  says  Mr.  Employer,  shall  I,  though 
still  in  my  senses,  feed  the  tiger  who  is  ready 


What  Is  the  Next  Step?  ioi 

to  destroy  me  ?  Moreover,  since  the  union  you 
ask  me  to  deal  with  is  an  unknown  quantity, 
how  do  I  know  which  I  shall  find  when  I  open 
the  door  ?     Is  it  to  be  the  Lady  or  the  Tiger  ? 

These  are  the  questions  which  Mr.  Rocke- 
feller's creed  does  not  answer,  at  least,  not  di- 
rectly, but  they  are  the  questions  asked  by  em- 
ployers all  over  the  country  and  upon  the  an- 
swer to  them  depends  American  hearty  acqui- 
escence in  the  British  policy  of  encouragement 
of  collective  bargaining.  If,  therefore,  collec- 
tive bargaining  is  to  be  the  basis  of  industrial 
reorganization,  and  if  we  are  not  ready,  with- 
out safeguards,  to  adopt  it  in  this  country,  how 
shall  we  proceed? 

The  policy  and  program  of  the  Sorel-Lenine- 
Trotzky  group  is  destructive  of  all  ownership 
— even  the  pianos,  the  pictures  and  the  clocks 
of  the  workman  are  not  safe.  Any  one  who 
saves  enough  to  buy  a  Liberty  Bond  becomes 
thereby  a  member  of  the  bourgeoisie.  And 
the  worker  in  the  shipyards  who  bought  a  bi- 
cycle or  a  Ford  or  a  little  home  for  himself  and 


102  American  Labor  Policy 

his  family  is  worse  than  a  bourgeois — he  is  a 
plutocrat.  Of  course,  ultimately,  there  is  no 
place  in  the  American  sun  for  such  a  philoso- 
phy. It  cannot  survive.  But  it  can  be  made 
to  thrive  if  we  fail  to  discriminate  between  the 
proper  use  of  collective  power  and  the  im- 
proper use  of  it.  England,  France  and  the 
United  States  had  to  meet  this  situation  during 
the  war.  The  Sorel-Lenine-Trotzky  groups 
were  all  against  the  war.  Every  chance  they 
got  they  threw  monkey  wrenches  into  the  war 
machinery.  But  they  failed.  Why?  The 
liberal  statesmen  in  power  in  all  three  countries 
frankly  and  openly  joined  hands  with  organ- 
ized labor.  In  this  country,  it  is  said  in  jest, 
but  not  wholly  without  truth,  that  it  was  not 
the  President's  Texan  friend,  the  Colonel,  but 
Mr.  Gompers  who  constituted  the  Third  House 
at  Washington.  And  Mr.  Gompers,  let  it  be 
said  to  his  credit,  delivered  the  goods.  With- 
out the  hearty  cooperation  of  the  American 
Federation  of  Labor,  the  productive  machinery 
of  the  nation  could  not  have  been  kept  in  con- 


What  Is  the  Next  Step?  103 

stant  motion.  Literally  the  goods  would  not 
have  been  delivered.  The  intelligent  workmen 
of  the  country  can  be  made  conscious  of  the 
new  imperialistic  danger  organizing  under  red 
banners — dangerous  to  them  as  well  as  to  em- 
ployers. Unity  can  be  had,  upon  the  basis  of 
recognizing  clearly  the  right  of  men  to  organ- 
ize collectively  and  responsibly.  The  solution 
is  to  be  found  in  a  process  that  will  enable  the 
organization  to  thrive  that  should  thrive  and 
the  organization  to  be  repressed  which  should 
be  repressed.  To  devise  this  process — chang- 
ing the  figure — is  to  find  the  anti-toxic  serum. 
The  organized  community  has  the  power  to 
regulate  all  private  organization;  it  can  re- 
quire corporations  to  secure  a  license  to  do 
business ;  it  can  require  co-partnerships  to  reg- 
ister. Not  the  full  and  complete  exercise  of 
this  power  to  regulate  corporation  and  associa- 
tion existence,  but  a  very  limited  use  of  it  will 
suffice.  Let  collective  agreements  be  made 
freely  by  all  trade  bodies,  employers  and  em- 
ployees.    But  let  them  be  registered  with  a 


104  American  Labor  Policy 

National  Labor  Board  (or  Industrial  Council) 
made  up  of  men  acceptable  to  organized  em- 
ployers and  organized  labor.  //  approved  by 
the  Board,  let  them  have  the  validity  of  legal, 
binding  obligations,  with  power  of  enforce- 
ment and  relief  to  either  party  when  injured 
vested  somewhere,  if  not  in  the  courts,  then 
in  some  new  tribunal  created  for  the  purpose. 
Let  the  organized  community,  thus  acting 
through  agencies  of  free  selection — working 
democratically,  if  you  please,  put  its  stamp  of 
approval  upon  collective  bargaining  where  it 
is  in  the  interest  of  the  community  and  its 
stamp  of  disapproval  where  it  is  against  the 
interest  of  the  community.  This  process  will 
bring  into  sharp  public  outline  the  nature  of 
the  organization.  Does  it  observe  its  obliga- 
tions? Is  it  striving  for  imperial  power  to 
overturn  government  ?  Or  is  it  honestly  seek- 
ing to  improve  the  working  conditions  of  men, 
seeking  by  juridical  and  parliamentary  process 
to  bring  about  a  better  industrial  condition? 
If  it  proves  that  it  merits  confidence,  it  will 


What  Is  the  Next  Step?  105 

grow  stronger.  If  it  proves  to  be  an  anti- 
social body,  it  will  meet  the  repressive  power 
of  the  organized  community,  operating  through 
agents  selected  by  workers  and  employers. 

This  means  a  frank,  open,  immediate  align- 
ment with  the  American  Federation  of  Labor 
and  in  these  days  of  "open  diplomacy"  the 
terms  may  be  stated  publicly. 

The  employers  of  the  country  to  organize  in 
all  industries.  The  employees  freely  to  organ- 
ize in  all  industries.  Constitutions  for  all  in- 
dustries to  be  worked  out  through  collective 
agreements,  but  these  agreements  to  be  sub- 
ject for  validity  and  enforcement,  not  to  the 
caprice  or  whim  or  moral  trustworthiness  of 
the  parties,  but  subject  always  to  the  super- 
vision of  a  National  Labor  Board,  or  Indus- 
trial Council,  so  constituted  as  to  avoid  all 
inference  that  either  group  dominates  its  de- 
terminations. A  definite,  clear  understanding 
upon  the  part  of  organized  labor  and  organized 
employers  that  their  energies  shall  henceforth 
be  devoted  not  to  warring  against  each  other, 


106  American  Labor  Policy 

but  as  contributing  forces  in  a  democratic  so- 
ciety, combining  their  energies  and  devoting 
them  toward  a  constantly  broadening  improve- 
ment of  the  productive  morale  of  the  country 
and  a  fairer  distribution  of  the  product.  This, 
we  have  seen,  includes  practically  the  substance 
of  the  entire  program  of  the  liberals  in  all 
groups — better  working,  better  housing,  better 
living  conditions,  for  the  workers,  of  brain  as 
well  as  of  brawn,  to  the  end  that  there  shall  be 
a  better  life  for  all  those  who  labor.  This, 
then,  is  the  democratic  law  and  order — para- 
phrasing the  President — the  establishment  of 
an  organization  of  peace  which  shall  make  it 
certain  that  the  combined  power  of  the  entire 
community  will  check  every  invasion  of  right 
and  serve  to  make  peace  and  justice  the  more 
secure  by  affording  a  definite  tribunal  of  opin- 
ion to  which  all  must  submit  and  by  which 
every  industrial  readjustment  that  cannot  be 
amicably  agreed  upon  by  the  peoples  directly 
concerned  shall  be  sanctioned.  If  we  leave 
to  contending  parties  the  making  of  the  con- 


What  Is  the  Next  Step?  107 

tract,  but  insist  that  after  it  is  made  it  shall  be 
observed,  we  shall  be  doing  justice  to  both. 
The  employer  who  violates  the  contract  can  be 
subjected  to  the  power  of  the  community;  the 
individual  worker  who,  or  the  organization  of 
workers  which  violates  the  agreement  can  like- 
wise be  subjected  to  the  power  of  the  com- 
munity. That  branch  of  organized  labor 
which  does  not  believe  in  the  overthrow  of  so- 
ciety, but  believes  in  the  steady  and  orderly 
improvement  of  the  conditions  of  labor,  can 
join  hands  with  organized  capital.  This  is  a 
platform  upon  which  both  can  stand  together. 
That  platform  contains  these  planks: 

1.  Agreements  voluntarily  come  to  between 
organizations  of  employers  and  organizations 
of  workpeople  shall  be  validated  by  law  and 
shall  receive  support  in  their  enforcement  from 
all  the  legal  agencies  of  Government. 

2.  Machinery  shall  be  set  up  by  which  either 
party  may  secure  redress  in  the  enforcement  of 
such  agreements. 

3.  Free  opportunity  shall  be  accorded  or- 


108  American  Labor  Policy 

ganized  labor  and  organized  capital  to  come 
to  such  agreements,  and  they  shall  be  encour- 
aged in  the  process  by  the  knowledge  that  such 
agreements,  when  made,  will  be  legally  en- 
forceable, and  if  not  made  the  arbitrary  party 
will  be  rigorously  dealt  with  by  the  community. 

4.  Those  who  break  their  contracts  will  be 
as  those  who  break  their  treaties — the  enemies 
of  organized  society  to  be  dealt  with  through 
the  combined  power  of  the  nation. 

5.  Thus  only  can  we  destroy  arbitrary 
power  anywhere  capable  "separately,  secretly, 
and  of  its  single  choice"  to  disturb  the  indus- 
trial peace.  Thus  shall  we  afford  opportunity 
for  the  gradual  ending  of  industrial  clashes. 

Upon  such  a  platform  Mr.  Gompers  could 
assure  the  leaders  of  labor  union  opinion  that 
the  power  of  organized  labor  would  be  in- 
creased; that  its  members  would  become  legion; 
that  instead  of  representing  but  a  small  per- 
centage of  the  labor  of  the  country,  it  would 
represent  substantially  the  larger  percentage 
of  the  whole.     Mr.  Rockefeller  could  assure 


What  Is  the  Next  Step?  109 

the  employers  of  the  country  that  the  provi- 
sions of  the  collective  agreements  into  which 
they  would  enter  had  some  reasonable  expec- 
tation of  enforcement,  and  that  in  the  recog- 
nition of  the  union  they  would  secure  the  surest 
guarantee  of  the  observance  of  standards 
throughout  their  industries. 

Standing  upon  such  a  platform,  both  Mr. 
Gompers  and  Mr.  Rockefeller  could  assure  the 
community  that  through  a  combined  program, 
the  right  to  review  unjust  exercise  of  power 
either  in  the  hands  of  the  employer  or  in  the 
hands  of  the  worker,  there  would  come  about 
a  reorganization  of  the  productive  morale  of 
the  country  and  the  energy  now  expended  in 
efforts  to  secure  advantage  of  position  or 
power  could  be  turned  jointly  to  increasing 
production  and  bettering  distribution. 

Freedom  to  organize,  freedom  to  deal  col- 
lectively, security  from  arbitrary  discharge,  se- 
curity against  strikes,  resulting  from  the  free 
interchange  of  opinions,  but,  when  made,  the 
compact  subject  to  the  approval  of  the  com- 


no  American  Labor  Policy 

munity  and,  after  approval,  enforceable  by  the 
community — these  would  seem  to  constitute  the 
basic  elements  of  a  new  democratic  law  and 
order.  To  accomplish  it  we  shall  need  to  re- 
vise our  legal  conceptions  of  freedom  of  con- 
tract. 


THE  END 


PRINTED    IN    THE    VNITED    STATES    OF    AMERICA 


THE  following  pages  contain  advertisements 
of  a  few  of  the  Macmillan  books  on  kin- 
dred subjects. 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

Law  and  Order  in  Industry 

By  JULIUS  HENRY  COHEN 

Cloth,  i2tno,  $1.50 

A  lawyer  who  knows  the  facts  of  the  case  from  inti- 
mate knowledge  gives  in  this  book  a  comprehensive 
story  of  the  "  Protocol "  experiences  in  the  cloak  and 
suit  industry  of  New  York.  He  describes  vividly  the 
processes  and  results  of  collective  dealing  between  a 
trades  union  and  an  employers'  association  covering  a 
period  of  five  years.  The  solution  of  the  apparently 
baffling  problems  furnishes  lessons  of  great  immediate 
and  future  import  to  all  employers  of  labor,  trades 
unionists,  social  reformers  and  students  of  political 
science  and  economics. 

"  The  book  is  a  distinct  contribution  to  the  science  of 
social  relations  and  as  such  should  have  a  wide  reading 
both  here  and  abroad." —  The  Independent. 

"  His  book  is  a  sound  and  reliable  study  of  a  small, 
but  significant,  phase  of  a  world-wide  movement." 

—  Boston  Daily  Advertiser. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Publishers     64-66  Fifth  Avenue     New  York 


A  NEW  IDEA  IN  INDUSTRY 

The  Shop  Committee 

A  HAND-BOOK  FOR  EMPLOYERS  AND  EMPLOYEES 
By  WILLIAM  LEAVITT  STODDARD,  A.B.,  A.M., 

Harvard 

Administrator  for  the  National  War  Labor  Board, 

1918-1919 

Cloth,  i2mo,  $1.25 
The  Shop  Committee  is  a  new  thing  in  industry.  Here  is 
a  clear  statement  of  the  essential  principles  and  facts  of  the 
Shop  Committee  System,  what  it  is  and  how  it  works.  Every 
large  employer  will  be  vitally  interested  in  this  new  indus- 
trial movement,  described  for  the  first  time  in  Mr.  Stod- 
dard's book. 

Table  of  Contents 
chapter 

I — The  Early  Beginnings :  History  of  the  shop  committee 
movement  in  this  country  and  Great  Britain  with  par- 
ticular  reference   to   the   developments   since   the    war 
and  shop  committees  as  a  reconstruction  measure. 
II — The  War  Labor   Board   Plan :   Development  of   shop 
committees   by   the   National   War   Labor   Board,   de- 
scribing particularly  the  Pittsfield,  Mass.,  plan   (Gen- 
eral Electric  Co.). 
Ill — General    Principles:    An    analysis    of    the    underlying 
principles  of  collective  bargaining  through  shop  com- 
mittees. 
IV — The   Basis   of    Representation:     Discussion   in   detail 
and  with   practical   illustrations   of   the  districting  or 
dividing  of  a  plant  into  shops,  districts,  and  other  units 
of  self-government.     Shows  common  errors  into  which 
employers  and  employees  fall. 
V — The    Lynn    Plan:    Shop    Committee    Scheme    of    the 

Lynn,  Mass.,  Plant.     (General  Electric  Co.). 
VI — Three   Characteristic    Plans:    Describes   plan   installed 
in   Pittsfield   Machine  and  Tool   Co.,   Pittsfield,   Mass. 
Also    plan    at    Bridgeport,    Conn.,    and    Philadelphia 
(Rapid  Transit  Co.). 
VII— Election  Machinery:   Similar  to  Chapter  IV,  a  prac- 
tical, detailed  discussion  of  how  to  hold  elections. 
VIII— Procedure :  Similar  to  IV  and  VII. 
IX — Shop  Committees  in  Action:  Stories  and  actual  inci- 
dents related. 
X — The  Shop  Committee  and  the  Union:  Important  dis- 
cussion of  this  question  with   particular   reference  to 
whether  the  formation  of  shop  committees  promotes 
unions  or  not. 

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History  of  Labor  in  the  United  States 

By  JOHN  R.  COMMONS 

Professor   of    Political   Economy,   University   of   Wisconsin, 

President  American  Economic  Association. 

With  collaborators 

In  two  Vols.  8°,  $6.50 
"The   fullest   and    most   careful   history   of   labor    in   the 
United  States  that  has  yet  appeared." —  The  New  York  Eve- 
ning Post. 

"  It  will  doubtless  be  generally  accepted  as  the  standard 
history  of  American  labor." —  The  New  York  Tribune. 

"  A  monumental  study  .  .  .  this  probably  is  the  final  history 
of  labor  in  our  country  during  the  centuries  which  imme- 
diately precede  our  own  times." —  The  New  York  Times. 

Labor  and  Administration 

By  JOHN  R.  COMMONS 

Cloth,  i2tno,  $1.60 
"  Straightforward    and    fearless    examinations    of    fact." — 

Boston  Evening  Transcript. 

"  There  is  not  a  chapter  which  does  not  contain  information 

which  is  practical  and  timely.''—  San  Francisco  Chronicle. 
"  Each  chapter  is  a  book  in  itself  worthy  of  careful  perusal. 

.  .  .  Written   in   his   unusual  vivid   and   interesting   style." — 

Post  Dispatch,  St.  Louis. 

An  Introduction  to  the  Study 

of  Organized  Labor  in  America 

By  GEORGE  GORHAM  GROAT 
Professor  of  Economics  in  the  University  of  Vermont 

$J.90 

"Those  interested  in  the  study  of  the  labor  movement  in 

this   country   will   find    Professor   Groat's   book   exceedingly 

helpful  —  a  singularly  fair  presentation  of  labor's  problem." 

—  San  Francisco  Bulletin. 

"  His  volume  is  admirably  adapted  to  giving  the  student  a 
conception  of  the  swiftly  changing  currents  in  the  field  of 
organized  labor." — New  York  Evening  Post. 


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The  Labor  Market 

By  DON  D.  LESCOHIER 

Cloth,  12° 

The  employment  problem  analyzed  as  a  market  problem, 
including  a  careful  study  of  the  factors  which  influence  sup- 
ply and  demand  of  labor  in  normal  times  and  the  effect  of 
war  upon  the  labor  market. 

Workmen's  Compensation 

By  J.  E.  RHODES,  2nd 

Cloth,  8vo,  $1.50 

A  history  of  the  Workmen's  Compensation  movement  in 
this  country,  and  an  outline  of  the  principles  on  which  the 
system  is  based. 

War  Time  Control  of  Industry 

By  HOWARD  L.  GRAY 

Cloth,  12°,  $1.75 

A  review  of  England's  problem  of  government  control 
during  the  war  is  particularly  significant  in  the  light  of  the 
present  condition  in  our  own  country. 


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